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I have a domain with 4 nameservers setup at the registrar. I have a reseller hosting account and have about 50 websites hosted there, all of which use my 4 nameservers at their respective registrars. I'm now in the process of migrating all of my hosted websites to Flywheel, which does not have nameservers -- instead, they instruct you to use an A record to point to the Flywheel IP address.

I don't have access to the domain registrars for all of my client websites. I'm wondering if there is a way to somehow redirect the nameservers to the Flywheel IP address.

I'm working on getting access to the registrars of my clients, but in the meantime, I'd like to be able to redirect everyone, if that is even possible.

Thanks!

Wendell
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1 Answers1

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The Situation

  • You run name / DNS servers that provide DNS for many customers
  • Your clients have pointed their domains at these name servers
  • You do not have access to the registrars to change the address of the name servers
  • You want to stop running name servers
  • You want to change server IP address (changing providers is technically irrelevant)

The Problem

Changing your server IP requires a change to the name servers. Your name servers are going away.

Clearly, someone has to run DNS servers.

Solutions

  1. Use registrar supplied DNS servers. This will require a change to every domain at the registrar.
  2. Use hosted DNS. CloudFlare and NameCheap both offer free DNS. This will require a change to every domain at the registrar.
  3. Name servers are typically addressed by domain name, not IP. The easier way to do this would be to set up name servers on your new host. If that's too difficult, there are probably places that will provide this as a service, with your host name(s).

Migration

Once you have DNS control, here's how you migrate to the new server.

Tim
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  • Thank you Tim. I assumed that was the case but was hopeful for an easier solution. Time to put on my big boy pants! – Wendell Apr 23 '17 at 02:11
  • I added an option 3. If you'd posted a bit more info I may have been able to provide more detail. For example, have all the customers put the address of your name servers into their registrar? If so is that done by IP or domain name? If it's domain name is it your domain or your providers? – Tim Apr 23 '17 at 02:36
  • Thank you for the follow up... Flywheel does not have nameservers, hence the A record from the registrar account(s). I do have nameservers setup under my primary domain, and I suspect that changing the A record for that domain might cause problems with the nameservers for all of the clients. All of the clients are using my nameservers (by domain name), so I'm trying to figure out the best way to get everyone over to the new Flywheel account with a minimum of down time. – Wendell Apr 24 '17 at 15:16