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I am organising a third party to do some work on my site which will mean moving my site from one hosting service provider to another but for security purposes I would like to keep my email with my existing service provider.

From what I understand I need to change the DNS settings with my registrar. I know how to simply move from one to another but I have no idea what to do regarding the email end of things.

The website registrar is NIC.MX and in the control panel I have access to change the following. The settings at present are:

DNS of domain name      llompart.com.mx 
Name Primary DNS        ns1.omnis.com
Primary DNS IP Address   
Name Secondary DNS      ns2.omnis.com
Secondary DNS IP Address   

The details of the other hosting site is:

ns1.perfectwide.com - 213.186.57.146
ns2.perfectwide.com - 91.121.117.130

As I would like to have the email to remain with OMNIS.COM (details above) The only other information regarding the email I currently wish to use is:

MX 20 postoffice.omnis.com
mail.llompart.com.mx        A    216.239.128.27
smtp-relay.llompart.com.mx  A    216.239.128.27
webmail.llompart.com.mx     A    216.239.128.69

Is this sufficient information to tell me what changes I need to make with NIC Account registrar above?

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  • It would be helpful if you could post your current DNS entries (sanitized if you wish, swap your domain for xyz.com and the IPs for 123.123.123.1, 123.123.123.2, etc) as the answer can vary depending on how you are currently setup with A records, CNAMEs, wildcards, etc.
    – ManiacZX
    Oct 27, 2009 at 18:02
  • Funny I don't see more info, I now see NO info.
    – ITGuy24
    Oct 27, 2009 at 20:41

4 Answers 4

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Typically a registrar will give you a control panel or some other kind of tool that will let you log in and modify your domain's DNS records. Assuming this is the case, you would need to edit the host (A) record for your web server to point to the IP address of the new host's web server.

If your registrar does not provide tool for you to do this then you will need to contact them as ask for support in making this happen (and consider switching registrars...)

For mail, you should be able to just leave it as it is. Unless your current provider has issues with that.

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  • Thanks for your comment, I have added some more specific info that might help
    – user24164
    Oct 27, 2009 at 18:42
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This change shouldn't affect your email at all. Email finds its way to your server via your MX record. Changing your website DNS alias will not affect your MX record.

But do ensure you still have an Alias of mail.domain.com or something similar for your email server as Spam filter use RDNS in their metrics.

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  • Thanks for your comment, I have added some more specific info that might help
    – user24164
    Oct 27, 2009 at 19:00
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Also, I recommend keeping your documentation up to date regarding whom is hosting what for you and the pertinent account and contact info for each provider. As an example:

  1. My domain is registered with Network Solutions

  2. DynDNS hosts my DNS records

  3. Postini hosts my email

  4. 1and1 hosts my web site

So, as you can see, multiple parties can be involved and it can quickly become confusing when making changes or troubleshooting problems.

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Update


As your domain llompart.com.mx is only using A records and you have defined entries for mail, www, smtp-relay, etc separately you will be safe to just modify the IP address that the www A record has to point at the new web server. You will need to ask them for the IP address or hostname of the actual web server that will host your site.

If they give you an IP address than update the www.llompart.com.mx A record to that address.

If they give you a hostname you can put it in as a CNAME record (ie: www CNAME www5.perfectwide.com.) if you wish. The advantage of the CNAME is if they change an IP address or server later, you don't have to update anything.

If you want users to be able to reach your site just via http://llompart.com.mx then you need to also update the A record defined as either llompart.com.mx. A 216.239.138.51 or it may appear as @ A 216.239.138.51.

I am not familiar with NIC.MX so I can't give you details on where to actually make the changes in their site.


For starters, lets say your domain is xyz.com and these are your current records:

A Records:  
@             IN    A       123.123.123.1  
server1       IN    A       123.123.123.1

CNAME Records:  
www           IN    CNAME   server1  
mail          IN    CNAME   server1

MX Records:  
              IN    MX   10 server1.xyz.com.

To break this down a bit:

@ means the origin or base level of your domain, so that line says resolve xyz.com to 123.123.123.1

The server1 line is similar to the @ line, this time saying resolve server1.xyz.com to 123.123.123.1

CNAMEs are basically aliases, instead of resolving to an IP address, they point to another name.

the www line says to resolve www.xyz.com to server1.xyz.com which in turn goes to 123.123.123.1

The 10 in the MX line is the priority, this only really matters if you have multiple MX entries.

If your layout looks similar to this one, your best bet is to change the www record from a CNAME to an A record and point the www and @ to the third party server such as:

@             IN    A       99.99.99.1
www           IN    A       99.99.99.1

Leaving the server1, mail and MX records to remain pointed at your current server.

Your registrar panel will display the entries a little different (won't have the IN for instance) but it should identify A records, CNAMEs and MX entries.

When typing in the destination addresses for the CNAME and MX entries, it is important to pay attention to the ending --> . <-- (I am trying to point out the period here).

When specifying DNS addresses, if you end with a period, that means you have typed the full address out (like my example of server1.xyz.com.) and so that will be the result given. If you do not have the ending period such as (server1) then the domain will be appened to the end (becoming server1.xyz.com).

If you can post details about your A, CNAME and MX records I can update this answer specific to your DNS layout.

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  • Thanks for your comment, I have added some more specific info that might help
    – user24164
    Oct 27, 2009 at 18:43

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