Question about moving to new host and domain

[andy_mk3]

Hi, just trying to get my head round this bit. I currently have a vbulletin forum on Host A, with Domain1.com. I have Host B with Domain2.com all set up ready to transfer over.

I want a seamless as possible transfer to minimise forum downtime. I want Domain1.com to continue to point to the forums, as it currently is. I'm not worried about Domain2.com, it came free with the host.

So how do I set that up on Host B? I will obviously need to point the nameservers to Host B, but does that domain go on as an Addon Domain?

I hope that makes sense lol.

 

[rexehuk]

No problem, this is fairly easy.

Domains work on TTLs, and to do a smooth transition you need to lower the TTL before you can move the domain.

Now, if you're moving simply to domain2, which is completely different to domain1 you might not have to worry about this as much, but you do have to worry about data duplication!

The steps should be this:

1. Install the Forum DB/Forums on HOST B
2. Make sure it cannot be navigated to yet, htaccess is a good way to do this
3. Disable new posting/registrations on host A
4. Export the DB on Host A
5. Import the DB on Host B
6. Check/Confirm all is working, i.e. posts are intact and so forth
7. You're done

However, this seems rather weird. If you're transferring from DOMAINA.COM to DOMAINB.COM you're going to lose all your traffic, unless you setup domain forwarding for DOMAINA and a ton of 301 redirects for all your old content!

Are you physically changing the domain name? This could have big impacts on visibility of your site, not to mention users being confused when they go to visit, including worries of security for the user.

If the answer is yes, I would say stop as that is a lot of work. The better option is having DOMAINA as the primary, and then tacking on DOMAINB as an additional domain which redirects to DOMAINA.

Regardless, you'll want to lower the TTL on your domain to 5 minutes, 24 hours prior to moving (normally is 1440), this ensures that the DNS propagation happens relatively quickly, otherwise you'll have people visiting DomainA on Host1 and DomainA on Host 2 simultaneously, which is why you need to disable posting on the source of the move.

 

[andy_mk3]

Thank you for your reply that's very helpful.

I am keeping the original domain, DomainB is just the main domain on HostB, but I don't need to use that.

I guess if I close the forums on HostA, with a message to say they are still viewing the old server, and to keep trying until they end up on the new host.

 

[rexehuk]

Thank you for your reply that's very helpful.

I am keeping the original domain, DomainB is just the main domain on HostB, but I don't need to use that.

I guess if I close the forums on HostA, with a message to say they are still viewing the old server, and to keep trying until they end up on the new host.

Could do this, what I'd normally do is disable the forums and inject just a banner saying "You're viewing the old forums, as we've migrated to an old server- Please come back in 24 hours" or something.

With any server move, minimise. the risk, do tasks one at a time. First port of call is moving, so do that first DomainA to DomainA, then plan to do the domain switch later if you need to. Piling them all together just makes it more likely something will go wrong!

Guessing you've got CPANEL if you're referring to Addon domains? That is one way to do it, point NS on domain to new server, setup an addon domain and away you go. Or you can just setup a redirect from where you bought the domain, if the NS is already with them, that is the better option.

 

[andy_mk3]

That makes sense to me yes, excellent!

Yes that's the plan. Priority is pointing domainA to hostB for now, can transfer the domain itself at a later date.

And yes it is cPanel. If I redirect domainA to domainB, will that not show as domainB once redirected? As I don't really want to use domainB at all if that makes sense! I think the addon domain is the best option.

Edit: I can't change the TTL on my domain, but it's apparently set to 1 hour by default, so not too bad really.

 

[rexehuk]

And yes it is cPanel. If I redirect domainA to domainB, will that not show as domainB once redirected? As I don't really want to use domainB at all if that makes sense! I think the addon domain is the best option.

Depends how you configure it. You can have it mask, or you can have it simply change from mysite.co.uk to myothersite.com which is just a redirection.

Domain mask might cause problems with vBulletin not sure, certainly would with some CMS platforms as the hostname would be incorrect for all the file linking etc.

There is no real reason to have multiple domains doing different things, with the exception of running a .com and .co.uk business targeted at particular markets. I always buy all the domains I can and pick the best, which is usually the .com to be my main, and point all the .me / .co.uk to simply go to .com

Hope that helps, best of luck and hopefully goes smoothly!

 

[andy_mk3]

Thanks for all your help

It's all going ahead tomorrow night.

 

[rexehuk]

Thanks for all your help

It's all going ahead tomorrow night.

No worry chap.

 

[andy_mk3]

All has gone very smoothly, only minor issue currently is www.domainA.com and domainA.com means that cookies aren't being used on both with vbulletin.

I have just changed a DNS record for www. from a CNAME to A and the IP address, how it was set up with the previous host, so I am hoping that will sort it.

Edit: Fixed that with .htacess