What happens to email when changing DNS

[Eirik]

Hi,

I've moved a site from one server to another several times, but I've always been uncertain regarding what happens to the Email when the DNS is changed. First and foremost, what happens to the messages that are sent to an Email address before the DNS change. Will these also be avaiable after the DNS change from the new server?

Thanks in advance !

[Karl]

For a period of 0-48 hours or so, some email will go to the old host and some will go to the new host, so it is always advisable to keep the old account running for a bit to catch all stray email.

[Eirik]

But how can one catch the Email on the old server once the DNS has been changed. Would one use the IP address as mailserver (example: mail.125.125.125.125.com)?

Thanks in advance !

[Technosailor]

Hypothetically (And we recommend this to all our clients), you open the new account and get everything setup including all email accounts before doing a DNS change. That way, when the DNS starts looking to server2, the mail accounts are already there to collect your mail.

Aaron

[Eirik]

Thanks for the tips, Sketch. I always do this as well. However, won't there be about a 24 h period where the Email will be sent to the new sever one minute and the old one the next? I myself have at least seemingly had this experience.

[Karl]

Yes there will be a period where email is sometimes sent to the old host and sometimes to the new host because not all ISPs update their DNS info at the same time, which is why it is advisable to keep your hosting going for a bit longer with the host you are leaving - then you can at least collect any email that gets delivered there.

[Eirik]

Well, then I have to ask the same question as I asked in this thread earlier: How could I log in to download the Email from the old host?

[Karl]

That's something you'll have to ask your old host as it won't be the same for all, for most though you could just use the IP address of your site as the mail server name.

Thank you,

[Eirik]

Thanks for all your helpful tips, guys!

[Technosailor]

Look, keep 2 accounts in your Outlook or whatever you use. Hopefully maybe they both use exactly the same settings, but if not, setup 2 accounts...1 for each server. For a period of time you will get errors off server 2 but when the DNS changes you will start getting errors off server 1. During this time you should have downloaded everything that's available on both servers.

Aaron

[Lamar]

You may want to consider web-mail on the old server as an option for checking email.

-Lamar

[platinum]

when I swapped hosts, I simply used webmail to check the old host through Cpanel.

It's far easier that messing around with outlook for the sake of a 24hour period IMO.

You could also set up a redirect on your old host to an outside email address for the period.

[Eirik]

Originally posted by platinum
You could also set up a redirect on your old host to an outside email address for the period.

Yes, I've considered this. I won't be able to do the Outlook thing, as I'm moving a lot of client's sites, and I can't ask them to set up two Email accounts just for the sake of moving their site.

I think I'll go for the Webmail suggestion. As a matter of fact, when I logged in now through Webmail to an account that I've set up at my own server, but which the belonging domain has not had its DNS changed to my server yet, I found 4 email from myself sent to the client of the domain to be transferred.

How come my Emails are being sent to the new account when the DNS change hasn't taken place yet. AFAIK, a DNS entry is created on my server in conjunction with creating the account, but shouldn't this stay inactive until the DNS change?

[platinum]

How do you know they are being sent to the new account and not the old one? It's probably checking mail.yourdomain.com no matter where it is checking it from

Or else the route to the new server is shorter and its grabbing them before hand.

[Eirik]

I know it's checking the old one because there's Email in the inbox is dating back to the start of September, and I'm 99% sure that the client has downloaded his Email since then. So it's probably your latter suggestion. Still, it sounds strange.

[Karl]

If you've set up an account on the new server for clientdomain.com and try and send email to clientdomain.com through the new server then it will get delivered to the clientdomain.com mail box on the new server because it is a local mail delivery (It will ignore the DNS) - I hope that makes sense.

[Eirik]

Yes, that made sense. Thanks for clearing that up, Karl!

[abwebs]

okay, I've read all I can on switching hosts and how to handle email messages... here's a challenge for everyone -

I'm switching a client's host account(20+ users set up with Outlook Express) and

1. I don't want each of them to have to configure an interim email account, and
2. they don't have access to webmail on their old host???

Do I have any other options to ensure they still get all their email messages from their old host while propogation is occurring?

[roneill]

You also might want to consider auto-forwarding all mail to a temporary account for a few days.

I don't know your set up but in accounts you can set the mailbox to just forward any mail it gets to another address. Just create a temporary hotmail account or something else and receive it there.

[abwebs]

Sure, roneill, I've set up a yahoo account to pull in my own messages for my own web site, but I don't think it's practical to ask a client to do that for 20 users.

Any other ideas, or insight into my issue?

How do companies with more than one user handle this email issue?


edited to add second question

[roneill]

You don't have to use Yahoo; you could keep it professional. Pretend the domain name is joe.com Set up another web hosting account for only email purposes joemail.com or email.joe.com. Forward the mail there and it won't be lost. You could then keep the subdomain for mail only or gradually transfer it over. It really depends on how mission critical the email is to the client.

[abwebs]

I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting.

Email is mission critical with my clients - that's why I'm struggling through this issue.

I think I'm trying to determine if each user would have to set up another email account in their Outlook Express like Eirik was talking about, or is my only other option to access webmail (which the client does not have)?

I have 20 different email users with one domain.
The 20 user email addresses are not being forwarded to one email address.

thanks for your help, as you can see, I'm very confused on how to handle this.

[roneill]

I am sorry I was so cryptic in my message. One possible solution is this:

Assume the domainname is "smith.com" and each of the users using Outlook are getting their mail from "mail.smith.com"

What I propose is this: create a new domain name such as "smith2.com" and create new accounts for each of the users under this domain name. You will have to have the user change their outlook settings to get their mail from "mail.smith2.com". Basically you are only going to use the domain for mail only--you won't use the web hosting part.

Now before the switch to the new server set up this email and auto-forward all of the mail from the old server/account to the new account "smith2.com". Do this a couple of weeks before the server move. At this point all email going to user@smith.com are now being forwarded to user@smith2.com.

Now at the time of the server transfer perform the transfer on a friday so the weekend will be used to send the new name server information during non-business days. When the new server is set up the first item to do is to forward all email to "smith2.com".

Now, hopefully the filtering effect will take no longer than Monday and not much will happen over the weekend. During this time users will still have email through "smith2.com". If someone sends an email to the server at the old IP and it receives it; it will forward to "smith2.com". If an email is sent and the new IP receives it will be sent to "smith2.com".

After a week has passed and the new IP is full realized through the net you can cease forwarding email and receive all email at "smith.com" at the new IP.

ALTERNATIVE: Rather than forwarding the email to the new IP you could just keep the new domain name and use it only for email. Basically this would require the users to notify everyone they talk to over the net of the new address.