I need to move my site from one ASO server to another. What are the preparation steps I need to take?

If for some reason your site needs to be moved to another server, there usually won't be any downtime. However, there will be a period of a few hours where your site will appear on either server as DNS updates around the Internet. While this isn't usually a problem, there will be a few minor details you'll want to be aware of.

Email

Your email may be directed to the old server for a few hours from email servers that have the old server IP address cached, while email servers that haven't sent email for a while may get the new IP address. This is normal.

To get around this, check your webmail at your old IP address (don't use the domain name).
http://1.2.3.4/webmail∞

Forums

If you run a community forum site, then your members may try posting to the site while the DNS is updating. If they post to the old server, then they get the new DNS entry and view the forum at the new server, their post will disappear. To avoid this, close your forums to new posts during the transfer (this is sometimes called Maintenance Mode depending on the forum software). Once your site has been transferred to the new server, you can reopen the forum on the new server, leaving the old one closed. That way, as members start seeing the updated DNS information, they will start being able to post again.


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