How to Migrate DNS Records to a New Provider

How to Migrate DNS Records to a New Provider

Moving your DNS to a new provider is a critical operation that affects every service tied to your domain — websites, email, APIs, and more. This guide covers how to safely migrate DNS records without causing outages, ensuring continuity for all services hosted on your Breeze instances.

Step 1: Export Your Current DNS Records

Before making any changes, document every DNS record at your current provider. Most providers offer a zone file export. If not, manually record each entry:

# Example zone file format
example.com.      A       203.0.113.10
www.example.com.  CNAME   example.com.
mail.example.com. A       203.0.113.11
example.com.      MX 10   mail.example.com.
example.com.      TXT     "v=spf1 ip4:203.0.113.10 -all"
_dmarc.example.com. TXT   "v=DMARC1; p=quarantine"

Include all A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, SRV, CAA, and NS records. Missing even one record can break a service.

Step 2: Create the Zone at the New Provider

Add your domain at the new DNS provider and recreate every record exactly as it exists today. Do not change any IP addresses or values yet — the goal is an exact replica:

• Recreate all A and AAAA records pointing to your Breeze IPs
• Recreate CNAME aliases
• Copy MX records with correct priorities
• Copy all TXT records including SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and domain verification records
• Recreate any SRV records for services like SIP or XMPP
• Add CAA records if you use them for certificate authority authorization

Step 3: Lower TTLs at the Current Provider

At least 48 hours before the migration, lower the TTL on all records to 300 seconds (5 minutes). This ensures that once you update nameservers, resolvers worldwide will pick up the new records quickly:

example.com.  A  203.0.113.10  TTL=300

Wait for the old higher TTL to expire before proceeding to the nameserver change.

Step 4: Verify Records at the New Provider

Before switching nameservers, verify your records at the new provider are correct. Many DNS providers assign nameservers like ns1.newprovider.com. You can query these directly to confirm:

dig @ns1.newprovider.com example.com A
dig @ns1.newprovider.com example.com MX
dig @ns1.newprovider.com example.com TXT

Compare the results with queries to your current nameservers to ensure they match.

Step 5: Update Nameservers at Your Registrar

Log in to your domain registrar and update the nameservers to those provided by your new DNS provider. This is typically done in the domain management panel under "Nameservers" or "DNS Settings":

NS1: ns1.newprovider.com
NS2: ns2.newprovider.com

Nameserver changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate globally, though most resolvers will update within a few hours.

Step 6: Monitor Propagation

Use online DNS propagation checkers or command-line tools to monitor the transition:

dig +trace example.com
dig example.com NS

During the propagation window, some users will hit the old nameservers and some the new ones. This is why having identical records at both providers is critical.

Step 7: Post-Migration Cleanup

Once propagation is complete and all queries are being served by the new provider:

• Increase TTLs back to normal values (3600-86400 seconds)
• Keep the old DNS zone active for at least one week as a safety net
• Test all services: website, email delivery, API endpoints, SSL certificate renewal
• Update any hardcoded nameserver references in scripts or documentation