Changing webspace providor

[Frazer]

Hi, I was wondering what happens when the webspace providor is changed.

Specifically, I am involved in a messageboard that is used 24 hours every day. When I change its webspace I would want the address to point to the new webspace when I clicked a button, or at a particular time, and not "sometime in the next few hours".

Does this question make sense? I'm none too techie so might be speaking Cockney to a Scouse

[eUKhost.com]

While changing webspace you should close messageboard on the old server and make sure that the A records are pointed to new server from the old server.

This will ensure that members of the messageboard wont add any new threads / posts on old messageboard.

[Frazer]

Thanks for the reply What's an A record?

[eUKhost.com]

A Record = Authority Record

A record relates your domain name to an IP address. without A record your domain will never know from where to resolve.

[Frazer]

OK, like DNS then? How is it changed and how long typically does it take?

[flesso]

Originally Posted by Frazer

OK, like DNS then? How is it changed and how long typically does it take?

You can normally change the DNS through your provider's control panel. DNS normally takes 24-48 hours to propogate.

[Frazer]

Oh, are these the 4 letter tags representing the providor?

I've had a look in the current providor's cpanel and the eukhost one and cannot see any DNS setting - would you give me a pointer please

What do people do for 24-48 hours if they've got a busy website hosting that cannot be down for that long?

[WelshTom]

Originally Posted by Frazer

Oh, are these the 4 letter tags representing the providor?

I've had a look in the current providor's cpanel and the eukhost one and cannot see any DNS setting - would you give me a pointer please

What do people do for 24-48 hours if they've got a busy website hosting that cannot be down for that long?

If you currently have cPanel hosting, you wont be able to change the DNS setting. However, your host will be able to initiate it via WHM, so drop them a request to get this done

[jc8654]

What I would suggest about the time issue is you close the old forum down as said before and put a message at that page saying the forum is down etc.

Now, with eukhost they will give you a temp address to go to the website hosting while the dns is propogating which will be something like http://84.84.84.84/~username. If you put this as a link on your old website hosting (or a forwarder), anyone who hadn't had their dns updated would get the message and be able to click the temp link or getting taken to the new server automatically. Obviously you would have put the website hosting up on the new server a.s.a.p. (it could be already set up before the change and you'd just have to import the database) which would minimise any downtime. Hopefully then it would be actually unavailable for around 1 hour max (it should be more like minutes really depending on the download and transfer of the database) even if people then had to maybe redirect themselves for the next 48 hours tops (but as I say, this could be done automatically with a redirect).

Hope that all makes sense.

[Frazer]

Yes that does make sense and is very logical & simple. Thank you to you and Thomas