[OpenAFS] Swapping AFS DB servers on the same IP names/numbers

[Bill Hays]

We have three older afs db servers running on suns and are migrating to
three new servers running redhat linux. What we'd like to know is whether
we can take down the old servers, and renumber and rename the new servers
to match the three old servers so that we do not have to touch the
CellServDB entries in all of the clients. We do have DNS set up for our 
AFS cell, but many clients are still using CellServDB files.

The current servers are:
>cs.unc.edu          # University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
152.2.128.1          #crow.cs.unc.edu
152.2.128.2          #falcon.cs.unc.edu
152.2.128.8          #thrush.cs.unc.edu

What we'd like to do is take down these servers, and then change the ip 
names and numbers on the new servers to match these, with as little fuss 
as possible for our clients.

Obviously, our main concerns are data integrity and maintaining uptime.
We've found some references in the list archives about changing server
numbers, eg:
<http://www.mail-archive.com/openafs-info@openafs.org/msg14132.html>
<http://www.mail-archive.com/openafs-devel@openafs.org/msg05825.html>
<http://www.openafs.org/pages/doc/AdminGuide/auagd008.htm#Header_160>

But so far what we've found online assumes that an existing server is
changing to a new unused number, not that a new server is assuming the ip
identity of a different server.

So the basic questions are:

Is it possible to safely renumber the servers in this way?

If it is possible, would we need to quarantine the servers for some period
of time on the network (so that active connections on clients would time
out or the servers could more safely restart the cell)?

Since ip ordering is important to AFS, is there a particular order we
should use if we can do this at all?

And has anyone out there done this before, and if so, can they give us any
advice? (esp. advice to the effect of "please please don't do this".

Thanks in advance for any help,
bil

(Sorry for any duppies, the first post didn't seem to get through)