Support - Migrating from mail.logon.net to mail.adhost.com
Migrating from mail.logon.net to mail.adhost.com
Adhost encourages it's customer who are still using mail.logon.net to migrate their accounts to mail.adhost.com. There are a number of reasons for this:
- Utilize the SPAM filtering capabilities of mail.adhost.com.
- Integrate these mail accounts into Adhost billing system for easier management in one interface - the Adhost client control panel
- Provide greater mail redundancy provided by the mail.adhost.com mail cluster
There are no plans to update the features included with mail.logon.net.
How to migrate
As with any migration the first step is to understand that the process of migrating a domain's mail accounts from one mail server to the next is not an automatic process and the you must follow the steps completely to avoid problems or lost mail. Adhost support staff will help you throughout the process but does not guarantee the migration is trouble-free. It's a technical issue with technical consequences.
Step one: Determine if Adhost controls DNS for the domain that will be migrating. Normally Adhost does control DNS for your domain. When Adhost does control DNS then it's a simple matter for Adhost to update the MX record at the predetermined time that has been established between you and Adhost. If Adhost does not control DNS then the first step is to establish who does control DNS and what steps will need to be taken to get the domain's MX record updated.
Step two: Listing and making notes of all the existing email accounts and email aliases currently in use on mail.logon.net by this domain. Listing these accounts is done easily by logging into Web Messaging at http://mail.logon.net:8383 as an admin for the domain being migrated. When listing the accounts keep in mind that there are default Imail accounts that will not need to be migrated, these are: admin, postmaster, abuse, imailsrv
Step three: Create the new POP accounts on mail.adhost.com (via the client control panel) and then map these POP accounts to the proper alias accounts that you will also need to create. You can do this by logging into the Adhost control panel at https://client.adhost.com however it may be easier if Adhost performs this step for you.
Step four: Configure the new account in the client software (i.e. Outlook/Thunderbird/Eudora) and test it. You should setup an additional email account within your client software and test it by sending mail to the full POP account email address. This is in the form of cust01@mail.adhost.com.
Step five: Check and remove all remaining mail from mail.logon.net for each account by either using client software to download the mail from mail.logon.net or by using Web Messaging to read and then delete the mail - not both at the same time!. Then immediately or very soon after this perform step six below.
Step six: OPTIONAL -- Determine a time to begin forwarding the email being delivered to mail.logon.net to the new accounts at cust01@mail.adhost.com. Perform this forwarding for each POP account and each alias on mail.logon.net. At this time all mail is now being forwarded to the your newly created POP account at mail.adhost.com.
Step seven: Establish a mutually agreed upon time when to change the MX record for the domain being migrated. Typically a Friday evening is best since this is the close of business day and allows the entire weekend for DNS to propagate.
Step eight: Final removal of all remaining mail from mail.logon.net. You are advised to revisit Web Messaging to ensure no further mail has made it way to mail.logon.net(but if you forward it all you won't have this problem). This can happen for a variety of reasons. If there is email still on mail.logon.net then forward each mail to their full POP account email address. This is in the form of cust01@mail.adhost.com
The mail migration is complete at this time. Use the Adhost support web pages to learn how to administrate the new accounts (using the Client Control Panel) and adjust SPAM filtering rules.
Note: There are a number of different ways to migrate to a new mail server. The above steps are recommended but your particular situation may require a different migration method.
Differences between the two email servers:
- mail.logon.net required SMTP authentication - mail.adhost.com does not. mail.adhost.com is POP before SMTP. Make sure the you do not use SMTP auth.
- mail.logon.net required the full email address as the UserID within email client software such as Outlook. Mail.adhost.com only requires the PopID and not the full email address.
- Mail.logon.net has a Web Messaging component at http://mail.logon.net:8383. This Web Messaging accesses the same inbox as the email client. Therefore it is different than http://webmail.adhost.com because this is a separate server that may be set to download mail to this server by default. Please note this important difference.
- Email administration was done via Web Messaging at http://mail.logon.net:8383 and now will be done via the Adhost Client control panel.
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