Procedure to Change Nameservers

Wed Sep 17 01:15:49 UTC 2008

Crist Clark wrote:
> This should be easy. But sometimes things that seem like they
> should be easy are not.
> 
> I want to change the nameservers for a bunch of domains. Really,
> all I want to do is change the IP address, but it seems easier
> just to change both the name and IP to avoid any possibility of
> confusion. However, I am not "physically" moving the services.
> These are the same physical servers, just an additional IP address
> assigned to the appropriate interface. I want to do this the
> "right" way.

Use a /32 routed to a host loopback interface. No reason to tie this to 
the network ethernet topology.

Route it here, route it there, route it through the load balancer, route 
it dynamically, route it here AND there.

Everything critical should be done that way. So much easier.

Make a clear distinction between the names in the NS and corresponding 
records and hostnames you use on the network. They should never 
correspond. That way you will never need/want to change them.

Keep the old addresses queryable for at least as long as your TTL was 
before the change. Maybe twice that. What does it cost you?

If you can do that, make the changes all at once or however suits your 
fancy, so long as what you put in works when you put it in.

if you keep the glue rec names/A the same as the zones NS records, there 
will be less bogus-lint complaints from things like dnsstuff, but you 
dont actually have to, as long as both sets work equally well.