Namecheap to AWS Route53 DNS Migration story

System administration is not my job but then sometimes I need to wear that hat to help the team. Here is how I managed DNS migration from Namecheap to AWS Route53.

Get the Zone file

Namecheap support was kind enough to send me zone file when I requested for one.

Format the zone file

• Remove whitespeces in the beginning of all lines in zone file
• Add below text as first line of zone file
• Make sure quote all TXT record values

@ORIGIN example.com

Install cli53

pip install cli53

Zone export

cli53 create example.com
cli53 import example.com --file example.com.zone

Verify

Find out your name server. Logon to AWS Route 53 console and find out NS entries. Pick one. In my case it was ns-1261.awsdns-29.org

pip install \
    git+http://github.com/joemiller/dns_compare.git#egg=dns_compare
dns_compare -z example.com --file example.com.zone \
    --server 8.8.8.8 -t false
dns_compare -z example.com --file example.com.zone \
    --server ns-1261.awsdns-29.org # use your aws ns
# -- OR --- use -t to ignore ttl differences
dns_compare -z example.com --file example.com.zone \
    --server ns-1261.awsdns-29.org -t false

Finally

Note: Steps below will cause some downtime (number of hours)

Go to namecheap’s “Transfer DNS to Webhost” page for your domain. Add new name servers. Save.

watch dig -t ANY @8.8.8.8 example.com