How to change hosts with NO downtime

[in4m8n]

After a VERY frustrating last year with my previous host, I decided to make a change. I was not looking forward to this process, and, as one of those things I would not do often, I was concerned that something might go wrong. I'd hate to lose email and a real customer contact form reply from my site that got lost could cost me money. Or worse, that wink or reply from match.com that got lost in the ether might kill my social life.

First step, find a new host.

Be careful!! A lot of sites that claim honest host reviews are simply affiliates that get surprisingly large fees if you signup from clicking links on their pages. There are real honest reviews, but they are few and far between. Do you homework NOW. After all, how often do you want to go through this exercise?

For example, my previous host gets glowing reviews almost everywhere I check. And yet, I have had excessive downtime most often that I discovered well before they did. FrontPage extensions would NOT work. Support was outsourced to Russia and had terse replies and often misunderstood my problem. On and on. Find any mention to that in any of the reviews of this particular host. I could not.

Now, a small unsolicited plug for HostMonster:

I've been here maybe 2 weeks, but already the support eclipses anything I have had previously. The servers seems quick, FrontPage extensions work, all is good. The only thing I would like to see improved is THIS forum! Let's get more of HM's customers here, change the logo, promote the forum. 'Nuf said.

So, now you have found the host with the features, plan, reputation you can live with. Now what?


Switch hosts with NO downtime

Buy an account at the new host! And do nothing else for the moment. Do not cancel your old account at the old host. And do not change the Nameservers in your Domain Registration just yet. Just buy an account and wait a few minutes for your welcome email.

Even though you have your domain name in your account (whether a new name or a transfer of your existing) , since the nameservers have not yet been changed, you will not be able to access your new account by entering www.yourdomain.com just yet. You will have been given an IP address and a way to access, however, such as http://123.456.7.8:2082/frontend/hostmonster/index.html . This will get you into your CPanel (or other control panel) so you can start rearranging the furniture and plugging in your appliances - so to speak. You will also be gieven ways to FTP files to your public directories using the new IP address as well. Or use that information to publish through FrontPage or another web creation program.

Go to your new control panel, look around. Install the FrontPage extensions first, if you need them. Takes a click or two. Set up your email accounts. In fact you can make them IDENTICAL to the ones you had at you last host if you are transferring your domain name. And no new passwords to remember unlesss you want to make them different now. I kept everything the same. And during the transition, I monitored email at both hosts until no more email came in to the old host. But more about that in a moment or two.

Setup your new webmail client. Now upload your site to the new host. And test it by using the above mentioned IP address and your site name preceeded by a tilde (~) like this http://123.456.7.8/~yourdomainname. Should work fine. Of course, if you type in www.yourdomainname.com, you will still be reaching your old host. This is fine for now.

Do make a small change to your home page at the new host. Something. Hit counter value, a small character change. Something that you can easily see. This is so that later on when you type in www.yourdomain.com, you know instantly if you are seeing the old site at the old host or your new one. It will help.

Again, do not tell your old host you are cancelling your account for the next few days at least!

Now, your site is uploaded to the new host (we won't go into downloading your site from your old host and moving it in this tutorial. I assume you have a current local copy on your local computer.) Email is set to go. Anything else like blogs or forums have been configured on the new host and all test OK. Now what?


Change your domain names dns.

The new host should have provided you with their domain name servers (dns). If they haven't contact them to find out what dns you should use for your domain name. But HostMonster does this next to instantly and here I used:

NS1.HOSTMONSTER.COM
NS2.HOSTMONSTER.COM

Now, your domain name registrar may be different than your old host. It may be the same. Some companies, like HM, include free domain registration with an account. So your OLD Control Panel may have a link to controlling your domain registration. Or, you may have registered with GoDaddy, 000domains, Yahoo, or one of hundreds of other choices. Only you know. So go there and change ONLY the DNS Nameservers. At worst, ask you old host to make the change for you, but you are then beginning to unbag the cat.

If you get stuck here, live chat or email your new host and ask for help. But it may turn out to be easier than you think. You will need your old host login and password, so have that handy.

Now, sit back a bit, pour a glass of Chardonnay and wait a little.

Sometimes YOU will see the site come up at the new host when you check www.yourdomian.com in minutes or hours as the new nameservers start to propogate around the world. This is great. It shows that it is working. BUT, others around the world may not be seeing this. Want to be safe? Once you can go to your new site this way, wait three days. Most if not all will be updated by then.

Now, also monitor email at BOTH your old and new site for these three days. You should start getting your email at your new host and email to the old should start diminishing. In a few days, no more email will arrive at the old host. Tell 'em to take a hike. I did and boy did it feel good :^)

If you followed the above, you should now have made a switch with no downtime on either your site or your email. Congratulations!

Comment away if I have missed anything.

~Bob

[xtendedf]

i think i'm dense, but here goes.

I have a hostmonsteraccount, xtendedfamily.com and my files live at /home/xtendedf. I buy qwx.com from godaddy and transfer the domain name to hostmonster. I go to godaddy and point the name servers to ns1.hostmonster.com and ns2.hostmonster.com. After three (3) days, qwx.com now to points to /home/xtendedf/public_hmtl? so if my original domain in hostmonster is xtendedfamily.com, both xtendedfamily.com & my new qwx.com i bought from godaddy, are both pointing to /home/xtendedf?

the urls http://xtendedfamily.com/file1.html & http://qwx.com/file1.html
are both pointing to /home/xtendedf/public_html/file1.html?

I'm just making sure. If this is the case, I can buy a whole bunch of $2.99
domain names and ship them over to hostmonster?

alex

[shadmego]

You almost have it figured out.

The step you are missing is logging into your HM account and adding the additional domain to your account.

Following the steps in the tutorial will give your the following structure in your HM account:

/home/xtendedf/public_html/addon_domain_name.com

Where addon_domain_name.com is the name of the domain you bought at GoDaddy (or wherever).

After about 48 hours (sometimes faster) you should be able to go to:

www.addon_domain_name.com and the files you will be served will come from this directory in your HM account:

/home/xtendedf/public_html/addon_domain_name.com

Does this make sense? There will be no clash of files for each domain because each one will be "served" from different directories in your HM account ... as indicated above.

There is also no limit (please verify) to the number of addon domains you can have, so yes, you can buy a whole bunch of domains and ship them over to HM ... as long as you don't forget to go through the process of adding them to your account through CPanel.

~regards

[xtendedf]

I get this:

Before continuing, you must first delete the domain from the Losing Registrar [5173-GO] to receive a full refund from them. Or just try again in a couple months from now.

this is so damn hard, sohmbody, hep me....pleaz.....

alex

[xtendedf]

I needed to go to addon domains instead of transfer domain.

thanks for all the help.

[shadmego]

Glad to hear you got it working!

[guidom64]

This in addition to the original thread from im4n8m.

Some wise words here my friend, and welcome at HM, a great Host.
Just about this forum, I think its a great forum with sufficient people in it to help you out with "almost" all problems you have. Just pack the forum would not be very helpful I guess.

Mods here are very competent and as long as for me, helped me much more then HM support. I live abroad and cant use collect calls, so the Forum is just the best place to be.

I put it once in a thread - HM has NOT a top notch ticket support in relation to NOT SPECIFICALLY HOSTING related issues. This can be due to the amount of tickets they receive and the priority of your problem (they have first to help people with HOSTING Problems, then the ones with e-mail, programs, website builder prob's etc.) in my point of view.

Now to what you wrote about Hosting and your prior problem. Very wise words and I recommend all to pick a BRANDNAME Host with at least a few years in business - preference NO RESELLER HOST. It's just not worth the risk you have and you will get Top Hosting service for a few dollars today in time.

I do offer Hosts in my Website and can tell you a secret. ALL Banners you see at ANY Website - are affiliate links. If someone says no he's lying.
What I have done in my Website is ORGANIZE the REVIEW MESS a little for that you get a compendium from the best Hosts. It's very confusing to find HM in 3 Reviews as #1, and then in the 4th Review as #6 ?? So I did a little research on 13 (before 10) Review sites to get to the Top Ranking list I show (I will update this weekend and HM is #1 overall best) at my site.

Then a (future) client should go for the best deal. After you know what Host you want - go and get it for the best deal available. You will get exactly the same product, regardless where you made the sign up.
I economized in the "information tsunamis" you will find at some directories and show just some important key figures from each Host, but I share my commission with my clients in stead to make the sign up a better deal over my site.
" If you wanna buy a Toaster you first check out what brand/model you want, then you research eBay or other places to get the best possible offer, don't you ?"

Hope you HM services are as good as for all the others out here.

[hderoo]

Hi,

I don't understand exactly how the change over works so here's a question: if i create a new email account on the new host with exactly the same details, then initiate the DNS changeover one host will 'fade in' and the other will 'fade out' but at a certain point in time my email client (ej. outlook) looks at the old host and at the next moment in time will be looking at the new host. now I can imagine that since the entire collection of DNS servers are not switched over instantly emails will still be sent to the old host while my client is already looking at the new host.

could you clarify this??

thanks
Hans

[griff671]

To get email from both old and new until everything propagates, just set up a new Outlook email address using the new server information. You should then receive mail from both accounts. When all has propagated and old account emails stop arriving, just delete the old Outlook account.

[in4m8n]

Perhaps to clarify a little more, if both your old and new hosts have an email address called me@mydomain.com with the same password at both acounts, then an email client such as Outlook Express can be set to POP that email and it will receive email from both hosts. After a period of time, email will no longer come in from the old host as DNS propogates. Then you need to make no change to your email client, just cancel your old account at the old host.

If you check email headers, you can see which host the email arrives from. It will show either th old or new host. When no more show fromthe old host, wait a day or two to be sure, then close the account.

~Bob