DNS MX Record Questions

[acmultim]

Hi All,

I've just taken over a website and have an advanced DNS question regarding MX records which is new to me. I will be transferring the registrar of the domain to my account and servers.

The Scenario:

The client has the domain 'domain.co.uk' They have an internal MS Exchange Server running on their network. The MX record for the domain name is 'mail.domain.co.uk'. The A record for this domain points to the clients network 'nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn'.

My Question:

If I re-create this on my new servers by creating the sub-domain 'mail.domain.co.uk' (pointing the A record to the same IP as before) and then set the MX record of 'domain.co.uk' to 'mail.domain.co.uk', will this work exactly the same as before?

Downtime:

Providing the current registrar doesn't switch the domain off as soon as the domain has been transferred, there shouldn't be any downtime of e-mails since the 'mail.domain.co.uk' will always point to the clients network. Is this correct?

Am I correct on all this and is there anything I am missing? I've never used MS Exchange nor messed about with MX records before so if there's anything I'm forgetting please let me know.

I plan to setup the domains and DNS records on my server at least 24 hours before transferring the domain over to allow for propagation at my current host - although it does typically take only a few minutes.

Any help appreciated on this one and if you need to know please let me know.

Thanks,

Andy

 

[lgarner]

It should be fine. I gather from this that the current registrar is providing DNS service for the domain.

I'd move the DNS to your system and have it stable before switching the domain. When you switch the domain, just have the new registrar use your DNS servers instead of theirs.

 

[lhuegele]

Are you planning to host your own external facing DNS servers? If so, what is the reason behind this? In my experience it's always better to have someone else host your external DNS.

Is the IP address of mail.domain.co.uk going to remain the same as it is now?

 

[acmultim]

Thanks for the advice guys. I just replicated the current DNS zone file with my new registrar and then transferred the domain over. It was up and running within only 2 days and everything works the same as before.

I guess once you've done it once it becomes easier to understand for the next time!

Thanks,