I am working with a company that receives e-mails all the time and I am about to change the DNS to use another hosting provider and redo their website. But I am worried about the email accounts.
If I change the DNS, there’s no way to know if it will take 24 or 72 hours to change and then go to configure the new DNS on their computers.
There are 3 people working there and they don’t know anything about computers, they panic if they have to even change the search engine.
Why would they need to configure a new DNS on their computers? The idea of a DNS is that it’s managed for you without needing to directly update a computer…
Are you changing their web hosting, or are you changing their building’s networking?
When I change DNS (A or MX records) both sites are up and running. You cannot control the propagation. But until the switch to other provide is propagated, the old site is working as usual. The switch is done almost seamless. Beware that the browsers cache may hold the old site until you clear the browsers cache.
I think you don’t understand how DNS work if you think that you need to change the DNS on your users’ computers.
DNS is always configured on a server, never on a user computer. Which server? That would depend on the type of network and configuration, but I would say that, in your case, you don’t have to worry much about it.
90% of the times, when you change hosting companies, you simply go to the domain provider and give them the DNS1 and DNS2 which would point to that particular domain, and the new hosting company will handle everything internally, and you don’t have to do anything about it.
Regarding if it will take between 24 or 72 hours, nobody can say. As per protocol, 72 hours is the maximum time for propagation of the new IP address worldwide but it rarely needs that much.
At the beggining, you would need those 24 hours for your new DNS to be forwarded to every single DNS Server in the world. Today it is not like that.
Maybe in 30 min and everything is done.
Still, protocol says that maximum time for a change like this is 72 hours. But you only need 72 hoours is there’s a catastrophe.
The best time to make this change would be out of office hours for that company, and maybe on a saturday.
They’re for sure less likely to receive mail on a Saturday at 3 a.m., as an example.
Most of the time I would do it like Sunday 7 a.m. It works with most companies. And, as I said, today servers are so much better updating DNS addresses, that in 30-60 min it is more likely that everything is running smoothly, and if there’s a weirdo in the company checking his e-mail at 8 a.m. on a Sunday, everything will be up and running
Yes, I don’t understand it as you say. I am still learning, and there is sooo much to learn.
What I mean is: They are working with outlook and if I transfer the domain, I don’t know if I would have to go to the company and change the information of the emails, meaning the IMAP, POP3, and SMTP information. Is this automatic?
Thank you in advance for your reply, I feel right now like a dinosaur asking for help.
Of you only change their DNS then no, you don’t need to update the SMTP and POP servers. They remain the same.
All DNS does is translate domain names to an IP. As long as the new DNS server translates the same domains to same IP as the old DNS server everything will be fine.
Also, if they give the same answer then the roll over period doesn’t really matter, as I would get the same answer regardless of whether I’m talking to the old or the new DNS server.
Thank you for your reply. So it means, if I transfer the domain, which will change the DNS, I will have to change the SMTP and POP? Will I have to do it manually?
The company has an IT person, I don’t know if I should tell him to do that or if it is my responsibility.
They have a hosting service and I could have worked with that one but so far, no one from the hosting company has replied and they don’t answer my calls. It’s frustrating. That’s why I will have to use my own hosting service.