Changing nameservers and email redirection

How long does it really take...

[bhonda]

Hey guys,

Hope you can help me - basically, last night I changed the nameservers on one of my domains. I got the usual 'may take up to 48 hours' warning.

No worries.

This morning the domain is pointing to the right place (less than 12 hours). Which is nice. However, my email forwarding has stopped. I've checked all the settings, and everything still looks ok - but every email I send to info@domain, just comes straight back to me with a 'Rejected by the other domain' error.

Now...am I being impatient and need to just wait a little bit, or if the site is coming up ok am I ok to assume the emails should be too?

I realise just how little I understand about DNS when I get problems like this!

Any advice would be appreciated!

Cheers,

B

[engine]

It's quite possible the e-mail has not yet populated, however, i'm surprised it's taking this long.

Can you ping the mailserver?

[wheel]

If your website is resolving, that means you're using the new DNS records,which will also mean that your mail server is also being resolved correctly to the new server (both pieces of information are contained in the same place). Which means if your mail isn't working, it's not a DNS issue. Time to look at your mail program on your server.

[wheel]

Also, check the 'headers' of the rejected email. there's likely an error number in the rejected email, like 500 or 505 or something. that number may give you a better clue as to the problem.

[piatkow]

which will also mean that your mail server is also being resolved correctly to the new server

Only if email and browsing are being handled by the same provider surely.
DNS updates can be pretty variable. When I have set up or redirected domains I see them through my ISP in well under 30 minutes. On the other hand I have heard of people still having to wait a day or two.

[weeks]

DNS updates can be pretty variable.

Yup. I'm moving some today as well. So far, it has been about 13 hours. I expect it will take about 24 hours, at least.

[bhonda]

Hey guys,

Thank you for all the responses. Turns out there was a problem with the new server, so I reverted back to the original servers.

What I've learnt from you guys, and this experience though: plan the change-over properly. I think that may help!

Cheers all!

B

[wheel]

Only if email and browsing are being handled by the same provider surely.

Your DNS record is one record, albeit you'll have a copy at your secondary nameserver. That single record contains the pointer to both your webserver and your mail. If you've got the new info on your website (which we do, because it's resolving) the mail stuff has to be the correct copy as well - since it's in the same record.

There's plenty of opportunities for error, but having one part of your domain record resolve and not another part isn't one of them :).

[swa66]

The trick to do this more smoothly:
- When changing DNS servers: make sure both (sets of) servers have *the same* information: wait long enough for the change to get into the TLD DNS servers and add the default TTL (time to live a time in seconds that you information remains valid, this is how long DNS caches arond the world will keep the info without checking with any server if it's changed or not) on the records as served by the TLD servers.

It will be a smooth transition if done this way.

- When changing information in DNS that's time critical:

up front: lower the TTL on the records you want to change (you can lower it down to a dozen seconds if you really need it that fast)

At the time of your choosing: change the records you need changed (tip: if you need to do a roll-back or at least keep it as an option: make sure you serve the new records with a low TTL as well)

Afterward: do not forget to set the TTL back to a large value (performance!)

Changing too much in one go: you will see transition as the caches on DNs all over the world use the TTL value on the individual records.

[piatkow]

Your DNS record is one record

But replicated across multiple DNS servers around the world. The PC that I am using to post this is connected through one service provider but my emails are processed by a different one. There is no guarantee that they are accessing the same physical instance of a DNS record.