Provider Migration

Moving a domain to another provider is delicate because there is a gap between “the entries are set up over there” and “the world is asking over there”. The migration mode closes it: it prepares, detects the switchover, and finishes up.

Note

We do not perform the nameserver change at the registrar ourselves — that stays with the domain owner. We orchestrate, verify, and finish.

Prerequisites

• The domain already exists at the target provider (created there, not yet delegated).
• An account for the target provider lives in the same project as the zone.

How it works

Open zone → Migrate to another provider… and choose the target account. Then the following happens:

1. Prepare. The domain is adopted at the target account and all managed record sets are copied there immediately. SOA and the apex NS entries are left out — those belong to the respective provider.
2. Validation record. A TXT record _dnse-migration with a random token is set at the target.
3. Switch over (done by you). Set the domain’s nameservers at the registrar to the new provider.
4. Detect. The instance queries the validation record every minute via public DNS. As long as the old nameservers answer, it does not resolve. Only when the public resolvers serve it has the new provider actually taken over.
5. Finish. The migration is automatically marked as complete and the validation record is removed again.

During steps 3 and 4 the zone shows a banner with the target account; a click on it stops the process should something get in the way after all.

What does not happen

Nothing is deleted. The old zone remains fully managed, even after the switchover — removing it from management is a deliberate, separate step. If the domain disappears at the old provider faster than the new one takes over, the zone and its entries are preserved as well.

While a migration is running, starting a second one for the same zone is blocked. A restart of the instance does not interrupt the monitoring: running migrations are resumed at startup.