[Wylug-discuss] ADSL migration

[Smylers]

Anne Wilson writes:

> 7 email addresses, all based on our own domain names.
> 2 registered domains, mail for one of which is low volume, and currently 
> redirected to the other domain.
> Home/hobby web space
> Fall-back webmail

Why do you require the above things from your ISP?

Through dial-up and ADSL I've been through 4 ISPs.  Most of these
accounts have come with some sort of e-mail, but I've always ignored
them as, like you, I've got my own domain.

Registering a domain is independent of anything else.  The registrar you
pick doesn't have to be your ISP, the place where your website is
hosted, nor even does it have to provide DNS for your domain.  Hundreds
of places do domain registrations, so I wouldn't at all be concerned
whether your ISP can do this.

Once you've got a domain you need to point it somewhere, for mail (and
website if you want that too).  Again there are plenty of people
offering various mail and web hosting packages.  Your site goes on one
of their servers, and your mail gets delivered there too.

You get your mail by connecting to your hosting provider; they will
offer pop, imap, webmail or some combination of those.

Your ISP knows about none of this.  All they are doing is plugging you
into the internet.  Once you're connected they don't have any more to do
with your website and incoming e-mail than they do any other site on the
net.  They can't restrict which domains you use, how many mailboxes you
have, or anything else.

> Technical Support may be requested by telephone or email - Support
> Staff must be Linux friendly, and able to respond in a reasonable
> time-scale.

Also, if all your ISP is doing is connecting you then there shouldn't be
much call for support.  Once you've managed to connect in the first
place there isn't really any need to contact them ever again.

My ISP seems to provide terrible support since it was bought last year,
but this hasn't affected me cos I've simply had no need to contact them.

And as for being Linux friendly, since you're connecting multiple
computers presumably the device directly connecting to broadband is a
router rather than a computer?  In which case there's nothing Linux
specific about it, and the ISP doesn't have to behave any differently
than if you were using a Windows computer on 'your' side of the router.

> Our 2 domains were registered by Mailbox on our behalf.  I would need
> to know that handling the transfer of them can be smoothly achieved.

That's mainly down to Mailbox!  Nearly all registrars are keen to accept
domain transfers in; but some try to make it awkward to move away from
them.

For .uk domains your new registar will tell you their Nominet tag.  You
will have to get Mailbox to change the tag from theirs to the new one;
there may be a self-service web control panel thing for doing this.

For .com and many other domains you initiate the transfer from your new
registrar.  Then they send a mail to your current registrar and you,
giving chance to object.  Note that if your domain is 'locked' then the
transfer will automatically fail.  Again you'd need to find some way of
getting Mailbox to unlock your domain before the transfer.

Domain registration transfers should involve no downtime at all on their
own (though if you're also moving hosting at the same time then that
will likely incur some downtime): the name server records don't change,
so it doesn't matter precisely when the change is.

Smylers