I am in the process of moving a large number of sites and POPs from a (hacked, RedHat 6.1) server to a new one (RaQ4).

My colo has left the primary nameserver pointing at the old box but set the secondary to the new one. So I have:

ns.mydomain.net = IP of old box
ns2.mydomain.net = IP of new RaQ4

All the domains I am moving are pointing to these nameservers.

Can anyone suggest, please, how I can stop the domains resolving to the primary IP so they resolve to the secondary instead, so I can test them on the new one, short of turning the old box off? (I won't be able to turn it back on, it's miles away)

Also, my other RaQ4 uses "dns0 and dns1" instead of "ns and ns2". Where does this difference come from and is it important?

TIA for any help

Eddie

If you change your domain records at your registrar so that the first DNS server it looks up is ns2.mydomain.net and set the secondary to ns.mydomain.net then that should work, you'll need to wait a few days for this to propagate around the Internet. It's the order that they are entered into the domain records that is important, that determines which DNS server is primary and which one is secondary.

Alan

Thank you Alan - if I understand what you mean the colo should have changed the primary not the secondary nameserver IP.

I wonder if I have misunderstood the function of the secondary name server.

Say I stop BIND (/etc/rc.d/init.d/named stop) on the old box and then try to go to one of the domains hosted on it. Should the domain then resolve to the IP pointed to by the secondary name server and the web site as held on the new box be displayed?

If this is possible, do I have to do anything else (preferably something that doesn't rely on DNS propagation first) to make it work?

Do you just want to test that the site is working on the new box? You can setup a temporary domain on the new box to test each site, or access the site via its IP address. Once all the sites are working, just change your DNS over to the enw DNS so that both of them point to your box.

Say I stop BIND (/etc/rc.d/init.d/named stop) on the old box and then try to go to one of the domains hosted on it. Should the domain then resolve to the IP pointed to by the secondary name server and the web site as held on the new box be displayed? Yes, if it can't reach the first DNS server, then it will try the secondary DNS, that's the purpose of it.

I don't understand why you would want to stop BIND on first server, that would mean that your site would resolve to the new box, so why not just change the domain fully to the new server?

If your intention is to do testing for the sites on the new box, I would leave the domain pointing as to the old box for now, so that the visitors can still get to the site. Depending on what control panel you are using on the new server, you'll want to setup a testing URL for the site, probably using its own IP address.

Off topic... where about is Basildon? :)

Alan

Well, I was hoping to find a way to set up and test all the sites and POP boxes on the new server with the old one still working, so that I could make the changeover with minimum downtime for any of the hundred or so users - and this was the method my colo recommended.

But now I would just be happy if the sites and email addresses would resolve to the new box, then I would have the rest of the weekend to fix the inevitable problems.

But with BIND stopped on the old box the secondary takeover doesn't seem to be working. I've tried deleting the DNS Zone records from the old box as well. However WHOIS shows that the pri and sec nameservers for the domains are correct. The browser just sits there doing nothing...

If it's a question of moving both I can't get the request made until Monday (unfortunately the colo registered the names with INWW) and then I will have a panic in the middle of the week.

If you'd like to have a look at one of the domains and try to figure out what it should be doing I could send it to you offlist?

Basildon is about halfway between London and Southend-on-Sea, 35 miles to the east of London... one of the least pleasant parts of the UK, but fairly prosperous.

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Eddie

Eddie, sure... if you can send me, by PM, all the details such as the domain, the IP of new box and IP of old box I'll take a look for you.

Basically you just want the domain to point to the new box right?

Alan