This article is intended for customers who have previously registered their domain name with a third-party domain registrar, such as Network Solutions, and who need to use their domain name with a (mt) Media Temple hosting service.

DETAILS:

When you wish to transfer your domain name from your current host to another hosting provider, the best course of action is to set up an account with us first, upload the content of your site via the IP address for your service with us, setup the same email recipients that you already have setup at the old hosting provider using the Control Panel that we provide you to manage your web site and ensure that when you browse this site by plugging in the IP address into your browser, it mirrors the site content that you have hosted with your current host. Once you are confident of this, then make a DNS modification to the name server information for your domain name with your domain registrar, and have it reflect the following information:

ns1.mediatemple.net
ns2.mediatemple.net

Normally the above information is sufficient information for most registrar systems. Some registrars may require that you also supply the associated IP addresses associated with each nameserver as well. In this case the following should be used:

• Primary Server Hostname: ns1.mediatemple.net
  
• IP Address: 64.207.129.18
  
• Secondary Server Hostname: ns2.mediatemple.net
  
• IP Address: 64.207.128.18

Additionally, including (mt) Media Temple, Inc as the technical contact for your domain may provide additional security and management capabilities. Network Solutions customers may use our NIC handle:

Technical Contact NIC: TC1041-ORG

Other 3rd-party registrars should use the following Technical Contact information:

DNS Administrator dnsadmin@mediatemple.net (mt) Media Temple, Inc 8520 National Blvd. Building A Culver City, CA US Phone: 877-578-4000 Fax: 818-301-2774

You can always verify our contact information at http://mediatemple.net/contact

In order for your domain name to work in conjunction with your hosting service, your domain name must "resolve" or translate to the "IP address" of your hosting service. If your domain name was registered with a company other than (mt) Media Temple, or (mt) Media Temple's nameservers were not supplied during the registration process of the domain name, then your domain name's nameservers must be modified to use the nameserver information provided above. By doing this you allow (mt) Media Temple to have authoritative control of your domain which allows us to control which IP address your domain name resolves to (which in almost every case will be the IP address of your hosting service). As soon as this DNS information propagates across the Internet (typically 24-48 hours) and your site/domain name is now resolving/pointing to our services, you may cancel your hosting account with your current host.

Additionally, provided that your content is the same on the (mt) Media Temple hosting servers that you have had displayed at your old hosting provider, and your email recipients are the same on the (mt) Media Temple servers that you already had setup at your old host (the email accounts are always tied to the domain name), when the domain name transfers to our DNS servers, the emails will come with the domain name and because the domain name switches in one second, you don't drop any emails in the domain name transition. This will allow the migration of your site to appear transparent to anyone attempting to access your site. However, this process does not transfer any emails that you have stored on your old hosting provider's servers. For archival purposes you should download all email to your computer before switching.

Revisions:

12-18-2008: Added Revisions Box