Creating a new account - DNS question

[Mullen]

Hi,

I have a client that has a hosting account with another company. He wants me to host his website, but he currently uses his domain name for all the company emails.

How would you recommend proceeding? Obviously, I could just get him to change the nameservers to mine and set up pop boxes the same as he has now, but I don't want any emails to go missing during the switchover.

Another thought I had was to let him keep the nameservers unchanged and just change his A record to point to my server. If I do this, his current host will continue to provide email facilities and I'll just host the website. How would I go about setting this up in WHM? I've only ever dealt with accounts where the nameservers have been changed to mine.

Many thanks in advance,
Dan

 

[rhenderson]

Hi,

I have a client that has a hosting account with another company. He wants me to host his website, but he currently uses his domain name for all the company emails.

How would you recommend proceeding? Obviously, I could just get him to change the nameservers to mine and set up pop boxes the same as he has now, but I don't want any emails to go missing during the switchover.

Another thought I had was to let him keep the nameservers unchanged and just change his A record to point to my server. If I do this, his current host will continue to provide email facilities and I'll just host the website. How would I go about setting this up in WHM? I've only ever dealt with accounts where the nameservers have been changed to mine.

Many thanks in advance,
Dan

You could setup the account on your end then have him change the MX records on the old server to point to your server, then have him change the nameservers and you should not loose any new mail. Why don't you do an account copy or restore a cPanel backup instead of creating everything so even old emails saved will be transferred.

As for you other thought if you set the account up on your server, point his MX records to the old server then have him change is nameservers, but I woul dnot go this way, why have two accounts.

 

[Mullen]

His current host doesn't have cPanel, or any other control panel. His business use his current host for a number of domain names and have all their email going through there. He wants to continue to use the current host for all his emails. (The reason he wants me to host his website is his current hsot doesn't support PHP or MySQL).

I see what you're saying about me setting the MX records in my DNS to match his current settings, then have him change the nameservers. Would it be just as easy to have his current host set an A record so www requests are pointed to my server? Is this what the "Use current nameservers" checkbox is for when setting up a new account?

 

[JawadArshad]

His current host doesn't have cPanel, or any other control panel. His business use his current host for a number of domain names and have all their email going through there. He wants to continue to use the current host for all his emails. (The reason he wants me to host his website is his current hsot doesn't support PHP or MySQL).

I see what you're saying about me setting the MX records in my DNS to match his current settings, then have him change the nameservers. Would it be just as easy to have his current host set an A record so www requests are pointed to my server? Is this what the "Use current nameservers" checkbox is for when setting up a new account?

Yes, if you want him to keep mails and name service at the old host and just host the website with you, then this is the advisable option. However, you can ask him to get the dns record 'mail' from a CNAME to an A record at the old host's IP so that mail.domain.com is still pointing to the old host. You can always change the name servers in the DNS zone manually after you create an account from "WHM >> DNS Functions >> Edit DNS Zone", if you forget the current name servers option.

 

[Mullen]

Great! I thought that was the way to go but needed someone to confirm it, just in case

Looking at the DNS records for his domain, it doesn't look like mail.domain.com is set up - they just have 4 MX records and 3 NS records configured. Is there anything I need to bear in mind? I really don't want anything going wrong!

(He doesn't currently have a website there - he used to but took it down. I think that's why there's no www set up).

Thanks for the advice.

 

[JawadArshad]

Great! I thought that was the way to go but needed someone to confirm it, just in case

Looking at the DNS records for his domain, it doesn't look like mail.domain.com is set up - they just have 4 MX records and 3 NS records configured. Is there anything I need to bear in mind? I really don't want anything going wrong!

(He doesn't currently have a website there - he used to but took it down. I think that's why there's no www set up).

Thanks for the advice.

Well thats about it, regarding DNS, you can just ask your client to tell his old host to just change the A record and adjust any MX dependencies so that mail handling is not changed. Other than that, you just need to setup the account and change the IP at the name servers to get the site running from here. It is always advisable to use cPanel's temporary URL facility to preview the domain before pointing DNS to the new server in the format: http://yourserverip/~username

where username is the cPanel username of your newly created account.
Best of Luck!

 

[Mullen]

Cheers mate, you've been a big help

 

[JawadArshad]

Cheers mate, you've been a big help

You are always welcome.