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zsababa

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Change Domain Name

Dear Sir,

We have W2000 Domain (Root Domain), DNS, and Exchange 2000 etc..
Our register exchange domain for example comanyname.com. The company is changing it name to for example newcompanyname.com and we want to change the domain name and the related emails for example: user1@companyname.com should change to user1@newcompanyname.com.

Is this possible without reinstalling everything from scratch?
Could you please help in solving this problem?

Thank you,

Ziad
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dansoto
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I would suggest reading this article first to see if you meet the criteria and then deciding how you want to approach this.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q292541&

Dan Soto
New Orleans, LA
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huckey

you could leave the domain name the same if you like.

changing of the email names is relatively easy. it would be a similar scenario to running multiple domain names in a single exchange organisation.

to change all the smtp addresses you could simply reset the global policy on exchange which would change all the accounts on the domain immediately.

then you would simply need to configure the new email domain to relay through the current root domain.

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ASKER

Hi Huckey,

Thank you very much for replying to my query. In fact, changing (SMTP) e-mail addresses is what I wanted.

We have a static IP address for our Exchange & it is hosted by our ISP.
I have to inform our ISP to change our Exchange Domain name right? For example from comanyname.com to newcompanyname.com.!

To reset the global policy on exchange? Is it done as written below?
On Exchange System Manager/Recipient Policies/Default Policy Properties I’ll change E-mail Addresses Policy SMTP Address.. Correct?

What changes to be done in DNS? Any other changes?
Could you please write me in details the steps I should follow?

Please note that our W2000 domain is in Mixed mode.

Should you require any information please do ask me.

Thank you and best regards,

Ziad

hi there.

ok this should be relatively easy then.

first I guess you need to ascertain wether you want to run with both names so that the rest of the world has time to catch up with the fact you have changed your DNS name.

it would really depend on the size of the org as to wether you would bother recreating the entire AD. If it was me I wouldnt bother however I guess thats a business decision.

The main issues you will need to address are these.

I would retain the current dns domain as well as the new one for a short period so that the external clients / ie the rest of the world, catches up with the fact you have just changed.

You will need to add a new MX and A records into DNS. for the new domain. It sounds to me like you currently allow your ISP to handle the Delegated DNS. If this is the case then you will need to advise your ISP you now have a new domain for which you want to create these records.

I would use something like

A  mail = xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (can be the same IP as old domain)

MX is mail.newcompany.com

It would be nice to have a separate IP address allocated if you have it but if not you can do without if need be.

You will need to create a new SMTP connector in exchange similar to the one you created for the old domain.

As for the SMTP address itself I would add an additional address like this.

user@olddomain.com and
user@newdomain.com

This will allow people outside to use either and still retain the mail.

Its been a little while since I did this I will try to dig up some data for you which may help with more exact config.

The changing of the AD is really cosmetic and would create a bucketload more work.

Hux
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huckey

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ASKER

Hi Hux,

As I previously mentioned my ISP is hosting our Exchange in their DNS with a static IP (External). Internally we have our own DNS & we are using NAT on the PIX Firewall (Internal Addresses).
The size of our company is not that big about 300 users.
The server that host Exchange 2000 & DNS is the root domain.

It will be good to run with both names (emails) for a short period of time & delete the old emails after (if possible)?

When I’ll advice my ISP about a new domain, do they have to assign a different IP address??

The SMTP connector container in our Exchange is not configured. (nothing there)

So, First thing is to add the new SMTP addresses for @newdomain.com in exchange/Default Recipient policy/e-mail addresses and force the “Recipient Update Service” to run and the second thing is to add a new MX and A records into DNS.
what else to be done?

Thanks and regards,
Ziad

Ok as far as the DNS goes you say you run your own DNS and your ISP runs DNS.

It is dependant on whom is delegated the DNS. I will make an assumption and say thats its your ISP at this point.

You will need to know whom has delegation. You can both be running DNS however the delegated server is the only one whom can make the modifications to DNS and whom are the real nameservers for that domain.

You can run with the same IP address and it does work, how correct it is im unsure. You can also run with two ip addresses which to me seems the better solution. You can use your Cisco gear to route your internal server.

As for the SMTP connector in Exchange this is very confusing, my understanding has always been you would never get mail if your SMTP connector was not configured.

Just to put you in the loop with these DNS records.

The A record is simply a name which you can use to resolve an IP address. hence I suggest the name mail.xxx.com

The MX record is extremely important for any domain that is wanting to receive mail. No MX record no mail simple as that.

What happens is all your external mail clients will look for your MX record when sending mail to your domain.

IE i send mail to xxxxxx@yourdomain.com therefore I lookup your MX record which would resolve to mail.yourdomain.com

mail.yourdomain.com would then resolve to your ip address. In this case it would be an External address on your PIX depending on wether your nat'ing or not. Or it would be the external address of your mailserver.

In the case of your PIX your PIX would then need to route to the real address of your mailserver. Ifyour using the real external address on your server then it arrives at the server.

From there you then need to process the mail which is done via the SMTP connector. Then exchange takes over and does the rest.

So theres a couple of scenarios here all of which work however some persons may frown on some and others may not.  Depends wether your looking at it from a security view or a technical view 6 of one half a dozen of the other I guess.

I would revisit your SMTP connector and check its configured ..

check this out for SMTP configuration.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q265293

hope this helps..

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ASKER

Hi Hux,

How are you? Finally our company officially changed its name. Our ISP ‘who has the delegation for the external DNS’ already has an MX record like this exch01.olddomain.com (FQDN) where ‘exch01’ is our exchange server name.
Now I’m writing to our ISP to create another MX record that point to the new domain for example exch01.newdomain.com and points to the same current registered external IP address.
Once this is done, I will create another new SMTP addresses for the newdomain.com in exchange/Default Recipient policy/e-mail addresses and click ‘Y’ to update all email address in AD.

Will it work this way? Is there any other things I have to do?

Thanks and best regards,
Ziad
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ASKER

Thank you Huckey