"A" record transfer

[WMB63]

We are in the process of getting a new Website that will be hosted offsite. We currently host our on site. Our concern is what to do about still having Outlook Web Access after the new site is active. We ask our designer and he replied w/ the following.

I think that your network tech needs to make a change in your DNS servers at your office to point traffic for the website to the new web server for only web traffic.

This is called an “A” record transfer.

Can anyone help me on how to do an "A" record transfer?

TIA!!

 

[58sniper]

Well, you don't "transfer" A records. You just update them.

There is an A record that points to the address you use for OWA. That's what may need to get changed.

If your website is "

http://www.domain.com",

and your OWA address is "mail.domain.com", you shouldn't need to change anything.

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Contributing author The Complete Reference: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007

 

[Roadki11]

You probably need to change something, but we need some more info. Is your OWA frontend on the same box you host your website on? If they are on the same box I would guess you are going to move only your company website offsite and OWA will continue to live where it is. Do you access OWA from outside your company network or only from inside? If you access it from outside then you may need to update an A record or add an A record depending if one was ever setup. You probably need to contact whomever you registered your domain name with. They would more than likely host the dns A record for company.com, if only 1 record is on file then any subdomains like mail.company.com would most likely resolve to company.com's IP and if OWA and your website are on the same box thats fine. Now if you move your website to a new IP your A record will need to be updated to say company.com is over there on this new IP, and mail.company.com wont work because its not going to your OWA server anymore. In this case you have your DNS register add a new A record saying mail.company.com is over here on this IP. Get it?



RoadKi11

"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen

 

[WMB63]

Roadki11,

Thanks for the quick reply!!.....Currently our OWA and Website are on the same box. We contact OWA from inside.

Let me make sure I do understand your post at the end....Our website will be moved to a new IP. I understand that I will have to change the A record but I don't know what "A record" I have to change. I think I know where to look. I went into Administrative Tools>DNS. I see our server name and the Foward and Reverse Lookup Zones and the Event Viewer. In the Foward Zone I see our companyname.com. I'm assuming when our new webite goes active I have delete that one and add a new one for the new website?

I don't see anything about mail......Will I have to add that also?

Thanks!

 

[etjohnson81]

you should have an "A" record for "WWW" under the companyname.com folder, change that to point to the new web server IP.

if you dont already have a "mail" or other A record, add one to point to the current IP address of the OWA server

Travis

http://www.bluelinenetworks.net

 

[WMB63]

Thanks to all that replied!!

I think I've got it now. I'm going to change the A record in the

http://WWW to

the new IP address. Create a new record called owa.companyname.com and point it to the IP address of the server. On the new website I will have a link created for users to click and check their emails w/ OWA....that link would be w w w.owa.companyname.com/exchange....

Does this sound like it will work?

 

[Roadki11]

Guess maybe i dont understand what you mean by "new Website that will be hosted offsite", to me that means your corporate internet(not intranet) website is being hosted by a 3rd party outside your network. In which case etjohnson81 is correct in how you would handle your internal DNS changes. My last post was more concerned with external DNS, and you would need to update your external DNS pointers also in addition to your internal DNS pointers.



RoadKi11

"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen