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We had a colo server and registered a domain for it. When we did that we had to provide the name and the IP address of the nameservers (pointing to the server) as the nameserver names were within that domain (let's call them ns.example.com and ns2.example.com)

Over time various people also hosted with us and we just got them to change their authoritative nameservers to ns and ns2.example.com.

We're in the process of migrating services to a shiny new server at a different location with (obviously) different IP addresses.

We have now moved all the content for us and others and updated the DNS records to point A/MX etc to the new server.

Now we wish to move the DNS service itself with the aim of getting rid of the original server entirely.

So the question is; if we just change the DNS for example.com and point ns and ns2 A records to the new server will it work (allowing time to propogate with DNS served from both servers)?

My concern is the original need to register the IP addresses of the nameservers. Do we need to re-register them somehow?

I really want to keep our nameserver names the same to stop everyone having to change the nameservers for their domains.

Hope that's clear, thanks in advance.


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up vote 3 down vote accepted

Assuming the domain in question corresponds to example.com, and that ns and ns2 are under that domain, you will also need to update the records for those entries with your domain registrar.

For example:

  1. your domain is awesome.local
  2. you have NS records that point to ns.awesome.local and ns2.awesome.local
  3. you have A records for ns and ns2 that point to and (substituting your values for my arbitrary examples)

You will need to:

  1. update the A records for ns and ns2 to your new IP addresses
  2. update the IP address listed with your registrar to the new IP addresses (this procedure varies between registrars, but it most commonly under some kind of advanced settings section)

It's also common to lower the TTL of the records in advance so that the old records will time out from cache faster. After the migration is complete. bump them back up to your regular values. This is optional, and can sometimes help speed up the process of propagating the new records.

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You can also add both in parallel for a bit if you like. –  Michael Graff Feb 8 '11 at 3:32
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