Disable one Email Domain

[teckystuff]

A bit of advice guys/gals please.

I currently have two email domians running on my 5.5 box. An old one and the new one I implemented a few months back. The time has now come to disable the old one and run exclusivly on the new one. I dont want to delete it completely because if problems arise I would like to very easily re-instate it very quickly. Whats the best way to do this? I have some ideas but would like to hear from you all.

Secondly I am considering setting up an automated reply to all emails coming into the old email domian to say that this email address is no longer valid and to blah blah blah.
How would I set this up??

Third question is, is there anyway I can redirect all emails coming in to the old email domain to another pst/exchange database just in case a very urgent email is among them and we need to be able to access it at a later stage.



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[zbnet]

2 domains on the same 5.5 box - presumably you've added secondary email addresses to all mailboxes for the new domain, but the old domain is still the primary?

Simplest way to cut over to the new domain is to change the Primary SMTP address for each mailbox to the new domain, and the old domain will become Secondary. This is one button to click in the GUI (per mailbox), but to automate it with your old friend Directry export/import isn't quite so easy (you've basically to rewrite the 2 address fields).

Concering your desired automated reply to the old domain. For the automated reply to work, the domain still has to be registered and have a valid MX record that ultimately resolves to the mailserver that returns the autoreply, so why not just continue to deliver these to the mailboxes? All outbound email would be being sent from the new domain addresses anyway, and you could always ask your users to use a signature on their external email to the effect of 'please note my new email address'.

If you really want to do an autoreply, the 'easiest' place to implement this (especially for a whole bunch of addresses) is on your upstream mail relay (assuming I have remembered your topology correctly from previous questions you've asked).

 

[teckystuff]

Hey ZB - I kinda knew you would be there to help
I have already got my users using the new domain as their primary. Its been running like that for about 6 months now but now we want to can the old domain altogether.

OK assuming we put the auto-reply to one side for now, what is the best way to disable and re-enable the old domain easily. I want to have a roll-back plan. Even though we have been "crossing over" for months now and all users have their primary email address as the new domain (did it with import/export - glad thats done)management is still worried that we will get important emails to the old domain. Thats kinda why I want to appear to shut it off but actually monitor or keep to aside the emails for another trial period. There are still business cards and letterheads out there with the old email addresses on.

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[zbnet]

As I said before, the domain is 'active' just as long as you keep the name registered and the MX record pointing to some kind of mail server - if that's the case, you might as well continue to deliver to Exchange.

If you're interested to prove that the number of emails being sent to the old domain is small or non-existent (the real issue for management, I presume), then your upstream mail relay server (you don't say what it is, probably sendmail, possisbly postfix, or maybe a commercial product) can be configured to keep a count of the emails being sent to each of the domains. These are the hard facts that will show you the right time to cease the old domain.

 

[teckystuff]

I hear you ZB - but instead of running the old domain for ever and a day we actually want to get rid of it.
I have thought of a solution that will get me most of what I want. We also run a brightmail box to check for all SPAM/Viruses etc. I think what I am going to do is set it to quarantine all messages sent to the old domain, that way I will still keep them but they wont be delivered. The only problem with this is that the sender will not get a NDR or bounce back saying the email address is no longer valid and will assume the message got through and will keep sending to that address. I dont think Brightmail can issue "out of office" type replies. I might be wrong.
FYI: The upstream mail relay is not an option for any config changes/monitoring. Long story

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