Moving DNS

[Kevin Darcy]

Kris McElroy wrote:

>We are buying another ISP right now and I have to move about 80 Domains to
>my Name Server.  My question is this.
>
>All there domains are registered with there registrar as ns.simplynet.net
>and lovecraft.simplynet.net.  Instead of me going to the registrar of every
>domain and changing the dns servers to my name servers, can I just change
>the main domain simplynet.net dns server to ns1.duracom.net.  Then on the
>simplynet.net zone file of ns1.duracom.net can I change the A record for
>lovecraft and ns to point to the A record of ns1.duracom.net or should I do
>a CNAME?
>
No, it's not legal to point an NS record at a CNAME.

You could change the delegations for simplynet.net to point to your 
nameservers (yes, nameservers, plural, since you are required to have at 
least 2 for every domain) and then in that zone change the addresses of 
ns.simplynet.net and lovecraft.simplynet.net to point to your 
nameservers' addresses. But for this to work you'd *also* need to change 
this in the "host" part of your registrar's maintenance interface. Of 
course, before changing those A records, double-check that they aren't 
being used for purposes besides DNS, otherwise you may break those 
services if you aren't hosting them on your nameservers.

In the long term, I think you probably want your nameservers to be 
referred to by consistent names, so you'll want to change all of those 
ns.simplynet.net and lovecraft.simplynet.net delegation records to 
ns1.duracom.net and your other nameserver(s), matching those changes in 
the NS records of the zones themselves. The above scheme (just changing 
the ns.simplynet.net and lovecraft.simplynet.net A records) may be 
appropriate as a short-term migration solution, but if your registrar 
has a "bulk delegation change" capability, you should probably avail 
yourself of that in order to save yourself some effort in the long term.

- Kevin