Ricky’s Online Business Blog

From time to time I need to process domain and hosting transfer for my BizPartner customers.  Here is a technical guide I’ll use to refer to customers on the transfer process.  Though I write this for my own customers, the transfer process here should be applicable to any hosting provider you choose.

I know the process is not easy for non-technical people.  But we will be available anytime to ensure smooth transfer, including doing most if not all of the tasks below for you.

First some definitions.  Transferring domain name means changing your domain name registrar (the company with which you or your hosting provider registered your domain name) to the one we use.  Transferring hosting means migrating your web site and email service from another hosting provider to us.

Domain Name Transfer

To transfer your international domain name (.com, .net, .org etc), please ask your current domain name provider to “unprotect” your domain name, and obtain the “domain name secret code” (domain authorization code) from them and send to us.  It is a little password to protect your domain from unauthorized transfer.

Once received, we will do the rest to transfer your domain over from your existing registrar to the one we use.  The process can take a few working days, but your web site and email service will not be affected.  After transfer, your domain name will be renewed for another year starting from the current expiry date.

For .my domain names, there is no “domain transfer”.  You can simply login to MYNIC web site as billing contact, and change the “Invoicing Party” from your existing provider to the one we use, so that we can take care of your domain name and bill you in the future.

Web Hosting Transfer

To transfer your web site to the new server, please obtain a copy of your web site (most probably you already have), and just upload to the new server using FTP software.

If your web site uses any database, such as MySQL, MSSQL or Microsoft Access, please be sure to backup and upload to the new server too.

Email Hosting Transfer

To transfer your email service to the new server, please first send us a list of your current email accounts.  I’ll create on the new server.  It is possible to achieve zero downtime for email service by checking your emails from both old and new serveres at the same time.  Please read here for more information.

Changing DNS

When you are ready to transfer hosting, just login to your domain name control panel and change the domain name server (DNS) to ours.

Please contact us at info [at] bizpartner.com.my should you have any question.

This is again a post related to the recent offer to BizPartner customers to migrate web and email hosting to the new Linux server running cPanel free of charge.

Some customers are very technical inclined, even more knowledgeable than me on server matters :-)  No surprise if they want to do the migration themselves.  So if you are interested in DIY migration, here is a summary checklist for you.

To start with, please make sure your web site can run on Linux server.  Web sites using ASP or .NET technologies will not run and should stay with your current Windows server.

Please also have your domain name control panel login details with you.  You need the username and password to login to change domain name server (DNS).  The details were sent to you when you first registered the domain.  Please contact me if you need help retrieving the details.

After you have decided to migrate, please let me know and I’ll create a hosting plan for you on the new server.  I will send you the hosting details with access to your cPanel.

Please carry out these three things before migration:

• Your web site - Please backup your web site from the current server and upload to the new server, using the temporary FTP details given to you.
• Your database - If you have any MySQL database on the current server, please backup and upload it to the new server using PhpMyAdmin in cPanel.
• Your email accounts - Please retrieve your current list of email addresses from the current server, and recreate them on the new server using cPanel.

However, your emails on the current server, if any, cannot be migrated over.  Your users need to download the emails to their computers.  But you can keep on sending and receiving emails during the migration.  Read here for more information.

Finally, at the migration date and time of your choice, just log on to the domain name control panel and change DNS setting according to the hosting details sent to you.

You can do it!

Recently I’ve been receiving a number of requests from customers to migrate their hosting service to the new cPanel-based Linux server.

But some customers are not migrating for fear that there might be downtime disrupting their email service during the few hours of migration.  Can there be zero downtime?

I don’t know how other hosting providers do it.  But for me, the answer is yes!  You can still send and receive as usual!  Firstly, you make a small change to the account in your email software to connect to the old mail using IP addresses.  Secondly, you create another account to connect to the new mail server after the migration.

For the old account, you simply change the “incoming mail server” from pop.yourdomain.com to the IP address of your current incoming mail server, and change the “outgoing mail server” from smtp.yourdomain.com to the IP address of your current outgoing mail server.  You can get the IP address by doing a “ping” test to pop.yourdomain.com and smtp.yourdomain.com.  Or you can just ask me and I’ll send you the IP addresses.

Once you enter the IP addresses for both “incoming mail server” and “outgoing mail server”, you can retrieve your emails from the old mail server and send emails as usual, before, during and after the migration.  Please do download all emails to your PC within a few days after the migration, as your email service on the old mail server will not be kept long.

For the new account, you create one in your email software in order to connect to the new mail server.  The settings are a bit different and I’ll send to you everything you need.  You can create the account any time but it will work only after the migration.

In addition, please send me the list of your current email addresses under your domain name so that I can help create the addresses on the new server.  This ensures that incoming emails after the migration will not get lost or bounced.

Easy migration!  No more migrane! :-)  Find out more if you are interested to migrate your hosting too.