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First let me say I am a self taught web builder and I am at a very basic level just trying to get my small art business website up and running by myself. I enjoy the graphic design piece the most but I have run into a sys admin stumbling block and just want to make sure I have things setup correctly.

I submitted a help ticket to Network Solutions with not much help. So I ended up here on this great resource site. I have searched for my answer here but am still questioning my setup. So any suggestions or corrections to my setup would be greatly appreciated.

Assuming my domain name is www.mydomain.com and I am registered at Network Solutions. I would like to:

  1. Keep my established email accounts at Network Solutions so I do not lose any incoming emails during my domain transfer process. I currently have two email accounts setup with network solutions. ([email protected], [email protected])

  2. Transfer my www.mydomain.com to a new host where I have been building a new site. The new host for my website has the following dns settings: (ns1.primweb.com, 209.50.181.200 and ns2.primweb.com, 209.50.181.201)

Here is what I currently have setup in my Domains section under www.mydomain.com with Network Solutions:

IP Address (A Records)

www               7200        209.50.181.200  
@ (None)          7200        none 
* (All Others)    7200        none 
www.mydomain.com  7200        209.50.181.201

Mail Servers (MX Records)

mydomain.com 

MXMailServer(Preference)                 TTL 
inbound.mydomain.com.netsolmail.net.(10) 7200 Network Solutions E-mail 

Host Aliases (CNAME Records)

Alias                       TTL      Refers to Host Name
mail.mydomain.com           7200     mail.mydomain.com.netsolmail.net. 
                                     Network Solutions E-mail  
smtp.mydomain.com           7200     smtp.mydomain.com.netsolmail.net.
                                     Network Solutions E-mail

If anyone sees any glaring errors that would keep my domain from trasferring to the new host and/or mess up my current email accounts, please let me know. So far my email is working properly but my site is not transferring.

This novice appreciates and thanks you for your time and help in advance!

Cindy

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    please clarify, you want to transfer your website to a new server, or you want to transfer your entire domain to another registrar?
    – Zak
    Oct 28, 2009 at 23:24
  • Hi Zak, To clarify. I want to transfer my website to a new server and leave Network Solutions as the registrar. I also want to leave my email accounts setup with Network Soulutions. Thanks!
    – Cindy
    Oct 29, 2009 at 13:36
  • Your zone confuses me, you have different records for 'www' and 'www.mydomain.com', which implies to me that the latter is really 'www.mydomin.com.mydomain.com.' Oct 30, 2009 at 4:09

1 Answer 1

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OK. Assuming you want to leave your registrar information at Network Solutions, you need to answer the following questions:

  • where do I want mydomain.com.'s nameservers to be?
  • what do I want www.mydomain.com. to resolve to?
  • what do I want mydomain.com. to resolve to?
  • what do I want the MX record for mydomain.com. to resolve to?

First, remember that there are two parts to DNS:

  • the REGISTRAR, which is basically a record of where the DNS servers for your domain are; and
  • the DNS provider, which holds the actual records for your zone.

The first question depends on whether or not you have control over the content of your DNS records at either host. If they both have control panel access, then you really don't care.

So at your REGISTRAR (network solutions, I'm guessing), make sure the DNS servers set for your domain for the DNS provider you want to use.

Now here's the important bit: if you have two sets of hosting (which I assume you do, one for www and one for mail), you have two choices:

  • maintain the zone in two places, which gives you opportunity for errors, or
  • you have to contact the one you are NOT using for DNS services and have them clear your domain from their DNS servers. ie: tell them "please remove mydomain.com from your DNS servers." Otherwise, their servers will be feeding wrong information to clients who query them.

Once you've made your decision on that, everything else falls into place pretty simply. Just make sure that the A records for mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com point to your new web server, while the MX record points to the system you want handling your mail.

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