Beginning a move of existing sites to cPanel - DNS migration first

[stardotstar]

Hi All,

First post and one that I am sure is a common issue but given my circumstances I would appreciate a pointer or two on how to most efficiently effect a migration of all my hosted sites to cPanel.

The first and most important step I believe will be to get the DNS from the original server onto the WHM server and to make this simple I have set things up the following way:

1) Legacy Server is on network A and hostname is helios.sourcepoint.com.au
2) New Server is on network B and hostname is jupiter.sourcepoint.com.au
3) All existing domain zone files are on Helios which runs named via A records ns1.sourcepoint.com.au ns2.sourcepoint.com.au

What I am guessing I can do here is migrate all the existing websites to the new server with WHM/cP on it - creating the customer accounts as I go, then replicate the zone files for ns1 on jupiter so that it becomes authoratitive for the domains as soon as the glue for ns1 and ns2 is changed.

What I am doing in effect is only moving the name servers IP and modifying the zone records to point to the old sites on the new network...

I hope I am thinking this through properly.

I am not asking for in depth help but more a sanity check on my approach and some advice on the best way to proceed, pointers to any good resources on this subject etc.

In the mean time I am searching and researching like mad.

The WHM box is up and running, 90% configured and the job seems quite simple since I am not needing to involve any real propagation in getting the sites to switch over onto the new host...

Thoughts appreciated, and thanks to cPanel for such good software, a great community and support already!

Will

[Spiral]

If you use the "Transfer Multiple Sites" option in WHM and check the "Express Transfer" option, it will update the DNS on the source machine to get things moving a big faster in terms of users connecting to the new server correctly.

You can also do things manually and the basic order of operations:

1. Setup new server base (OS, Cpanel, Etc) and try to match the software
and configurations between the two machines as closely as possible.

2. Transfer all sites, either by WHM tools, /scripts/pkgacct, or direct Rsync
to get all your data and accounts transferred over.

3. Edit your DNS zone files on the OLD machine with the new server IP

4. Issue the DNS IP address changes at your domain registrar

5. Overlap the servers and run both for about 3 days if possible

6. By now everyone should be totally moved over to the new server and
there should be no traffic left coming into the old server. Re-transfer
the "/home/(login)/mail" folders from each account again to pickup any
mail that got misdirected to the old server during the transfer and then
go ahead and delete the accounts from the original server.

7. You're Transferred!

Anyway, that's the basic procedure for a seamless transfer

If you need any help beyond the above, let me know and I'll be glad to give you a hand.

[stardotstar]

Thank you for the guidance.

It hasn't gone quite according to plan.

I am in a bit of trouble now.

The DNS migration has ended up breaking my old servers resolving and I can't get to any of the sites that were to remain on it.

Mail is down so I can't lodge a support ticket via my email based support account here.

I am working on it now in triage.!

Had to happen.

[Spiral]

I was just getting ready to leave but if you are still online, contact me!

I can definitely help you sort things out very quickly.

I will stay a little while longer to see if you respond ....

There after, I should be back on again sometime this evening.