Guide for transferring all accounts to a new server

[codebirth]

Hello all!

I'm in the process of transferring my accounts to other server but I already have a doubt. I replaced all 14400 by 900 as stated in the first step. The DNS zone file for my main domain looks like this now

$TTL 900
@ 14440 IN SOA ns1.mydomain.com. myname.gmail.com. (
2005022302
900
7200
3600000
86400
)

mydomain.com. 900 IN NS ns1.mydomain.com.
mydomain.com. 900 IN NS ns2.mydomain.com.

mydomain.com. 900 IN A ???.???.10.92

localhost.mydomain.com. 900 IN A 127.0.0.1

mydomain.com. 900 IN MX 0 mydomain.com.

mail 900 IN CNAME mydomain.com.
www 900 IN CNAME mydomain.com.
ftp 900 IN A ???.???.10.92
ns1 900 IN A ???.???.10.92
ns2 900 IN A ???.???.10.93
server 900 IN A ???.???.10.92

My question is... should I replace that 14440 shown in the first line too? All was 14400 except this 14440.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[codebirth]

Anyone please?

It's important that I put 900 instead of 14440 in the first line?

[ccccanada]

Yes it is important

[codebirth]

Thanks ccccanada!

[fuzzie]

I think I have followed the instructions in this post, but I am running into a minor problem.
When I transfer an account, everything seems to work fine, except the files under public_html don't get moved over.
Of course, I can't try it again, because I get the Account already exists for that user error.
So, I have tarred up the public_html dir and I am in the process of using scp to move it to the new server.

Anyone else have this issue, and is there a better workaround?

[blweb]

Did the account already exist on the server you are moving it to?

I think I have followed the instructions in this post, but I am running into a minor problem.
When I transfer an account, everything seems to work fine, except the files under public_html don't get moved over.
Of course, I can't try it again, because I get the Account already exists for that user error.
So, I have tarred up the public_html dir and I am in the process of using scp to move it to the new server.

Anyone else have this issue, and is there a better workaround?

[fuzzie]

Well, the transfer failed a couple of times. Each time, I had to delete the new account, and retry it. Eventually, I had to open a ticket, and Shanna transferred it manually.
So, yes, and no.
Do you know how I can fix it?

Been reading and trying this too:
http://forums.cpanel.net/showthread....ilman+transfer

FIXED: http://forums.cpanel.net/showthread....ht=mail+frozen

Do make sure that you're using an up to date exim as the upgrade to STABLE doesn't always upgrade it:

/scripts/updatenow
/scripts/eximup

[joel69]

Hello. I am in a situation where I would like to rebuild a cPanel box. I am seeing strange characters when it boots, and it is locking up often, causing us to have to use a remote power switch to hard reboot it. Plus, the partitioning scheme was not setup very well by the previous admin.

What is the best way to transfer from one box to another if I am just interested in transfering to new hardware and a fresh install of the OS and software?

Both servers are up and running in the same data center with an internal network connection between them, and access to a 1 TB RAID box used for backups. I am running the regular daily backup now. My plan is to just mount the backup box to the new server, run the restore, and swap the IP's around. (The new destination box has a temporary IP, and I'd swap this temporary IP with the current box's main shared hosting IP ... I'd also move the dedicated IP's over to the new box, but there's only a few of them.)

Thanks.

[ivaserver]

Found this and thought i should share it

It worked great for me.

Transferring Accounts Between cPanel Servers

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary:
This article describes how to transfer accounts, and dns zones between two cPanel based servers.

Background:
Moving accounts in a production environment has never been an easy task to perform. It is also not as complicated as you might think; it simply requires careful planning, and good understanding of the transfer steps that needs to be performed in order to prevent any downtime.

IMPORTANT: I recommend reading through this article BEFORE taking any step in transferring your accounts. If you’re not sure on how to perform any of these steps, then it would be best to let a professional handle it.

For the purpose of this article, I will be using the following information:


Quote:
Server1:
IP: 192.168.1.200 – 192.168.1.209
Hostname: Server1.sagonet.com

Name server information:
dns1.sagonet.com bound to 192.168.1.200
dns2.sagonet.com bound to 192.168.1.201



Quote:
Server2:
IP: 10.0.0.200 – 10.0.0.209
Hostname: Server2.sagonet.com

No name server information currently assigned


Note: I will be using the above information to migrate accounts, dns zones, and system settings from Server1 to Server2.


More information:

Step 1: DNS Zone TTL Configuration
Perform this step 3 days prior to transferring your accounts

Our first step would be to change the TTL (Time To Live) for each and every zone on Server1. Changing the TTL will insure quick dns propagation for every site across the Internet.

1. SSH to your server as the root superuser.

2. Type the following commands in shell:


Quote:
cd /var/named/
perl -pi.bak -e "s/14400/900/g" *.db

Note: This will change the TTL from 14400 seconds (4 hours) to 900 seconds (15 minutes).


Step 2: DNS Clustering
Perform this step 2 days prior to transferring your accounts

1. Log to your WHM on both Server1, and Server2.

2. Enable DNS clustering on both Server1, and Server2.


Quote:
On the left frame, under the Configure / Remote Access section, click on Configure Cluster. On the right frame, check the Enable Dns Clustering option, and click on Change. Follow this step for both of your servers, or in our case Server1 and Server2.


3. On Server1’s WHM we will add Server2 as its DNS peer.


Quote:
Under the Cluster / Remote Access section, click on Configure Cluster. On the right frame, in the Server Ip Address: field type in your new server’s IP, in our case Server2’s IP, then click on Configure.

Next, we will need to specify the Cluster Server Login and Server Remote Access Key.

We can leave the default Cluster Server Login on root. To obtain the remote server access key, click on one of the links below the Server Remote Access Key field.

Note: If for whatever reason the link doesn’t work, then you’ll have to log via WHM to your second server and display the current remote access key by clicking on Setup Remote Access Key under the Cluster / Remote Access section.

Copy and paste the correct remote access key in the Server Remote Access Key field. When you’re done, click on do it. cPanel will establish a trust relationship between Server1 and Server2.


Once our trust relationship has been established, we will need to set a DNS role on your new server, or in our case Server2. Go back to the Clustering configuration section, and from the drop down box set your new server’s role to Synchronize Changes

4. After we’ve established a trust relationship from Server1 to Server2, we will synchronize all our done zones. From Server1’s WHM, under DNS Functions click on Synchronize DNS Zones.

We’ll leave the default Sync Method on v2 (fast), and then click on Sync All to synchronize all zones to all servers.

Note: cPanel 9.1.0 build 142 or later is required for v2 fast syncs.

After we’ve successfully synchronized every zone on Server1 to Server2, our next step would be to log to our registrar and change dns2.sagonet.com's settings.

Step 3: Name Server Registrar Setting
Perform this step 2 days prior to transferring your accounts

Since our ultimate goal will be to get rid of Server1, we will need a name server that will be used to resolve all our sites, and since we’ve just synchronize all the dns zone information from Server1 to Server2, Server2 can now function as a secondary name server that will resolve all our dns zone information on Server1 just until we make the final move.

Your first step would be to log to your domain registrar, and then change the IP bound to your secondary DNS, in our case dns2.sagonet.com, from 192.168.1.201 to 10.0.0.201.

Note: I’ve decided to use my 2nd IP on Server2 which is 10.0.0.201 for logical reasons. You can use any IP you have on your new server for this purpose; you just need to make sure you configure the proper settings for it.

IMPORTANT: Make sure to update your NS2 A record in the appropriate DNS zone in order to reflect the changes we've just made. In this case, I will be updating NS2 A record for sagonet.com from IP 192.168.1.201 to 10.0.0.201.

Step 4: Transferring Accounts between cPanel Servers

1. Log to your new server’s WHM, in our case Server2.

2. On the left frame, under Transfers click on Copy multiple accounts from another server.

3. Fill out the information in the appropriate fields, when you’re done, click on Grab Account List.

4. Now cPanel will display the available accounts on the remote machine. You can either pick each account you wish to transfer manually, or scroll all the way to the bottom, then click on one of the selection buttons.

Note: You might want to consider taking different strategies in transferring your accounts between servers. For example, you could first transfer all your shared hosting accounts, and then verify their settings. Next, you can transfer accounts matching to their reseller, and then verify their settings.

IMPORTANT: From my experience, it takes approx. between 3 – 10 minutes to copy a single account between servers. If you have 100 accounts, then we’re talking about minimum 300 minutes (5 hours).

Step 5: Updating DNS Zones' IPs
After you’ve successfully transferred all your accounts, and verified their settings, our next step would be to point all our accounts’ DNS zones on our old server (in this case Server1) to the new server (Server2). To do so, SSH to your old server (Server1), and type in the following commands in shell:


Quote:
cd /var/named/
perl -pi.bak -e "s/old-ip/new-ip/g" *.db

Note: Replace old-ip and new-ip with the appropriate old and new IPs your sites are using.


Since we’ve changed our TTL settings in Step 1, it will take approx. 15 minutes until the dns changes will propagate throughout the Internet. After 15 minutes, try to ping one of your sites and see if the new IP has been resolved.

Step 6: Updating Name Server Registrar Setting
Now that all our sites are being resolved to the correct new IP by both dns1.sagonet.com and dns2.sagonet.com, we can safely change our dns1 name server setting, pointing it to Server2’s first IP.

Log to your domain registrar, and change the IP bound to your primary DNS, in our case dns1.sagonet.com, from 192.168.1.200 to 10.0.0.200.

IMPORTANT: Make sure to update your NS1 A record in the appropriate DNS zone in order to reflect the changes we've just made. In this case, I will be updating NS1 A record for sagonet.com from IP 192.168.1.200 to 10.0.0.200.

That's it!

[elleryjh]

Found this and thought i should share it

It worked great for me.

Looks good -especially the part about clustering, but left out a few important things from the original guide that I really think are important:
* Contact the customers to tell them about the transfer. Do it at an offpeak time.
* Shut Down exim on the old server! Do you really want to lose 5 hours worth of your clients' mail?

[ivaserver]

Looks good -especially the part about clustering, but left out a few important things from the original guide that I really think are important:
* Contact the customers to tell them about the transfer. Do it at an offpeak time.
* Shut Down exim on the old server! Do you really want to lose 5 hours worth of your clients' mail?

Good point about the * Contact the customers.

and thank you for your original post, the last time I paid a so called pro to move accounts for me I has quite a few problems and your post inspired me to have a go myself.


* To Shut Down exim on the old server is a good idea but when I used the method above with clustering and sync, the ip address was updated on transfer of an account on both servers DNS zones automatically.

I tested email and site a few minutes after transfer and both resolved to the new server :-)

[OCX]

im sure there is a 100 ways to do this..but this is how i do it..


step 1
email your users let them know you are switching servers for what ever reason
this way they know whats going on..and allow them to make a backup as well
just incase Y OUR backup fails..

step 2
lets say you have nameservers like this on your current server
ns1.domainname.com (points to your server IP1)
ns2.domainname.com (points to your server IP2)

step 2b
go to your domain registrar change the IP# of your second nameserver
to point to your NEW server IP# leave the First name server IP alone

give it an hour or so before you start editing your new server.

Step 3
setup your new cpanel server as you normaly would but use ONLY ns2.domain for your
name server

create any host name like secure.domainname.com set A record for this as well


Step 4
setup your resolv.conf to use the 1 IP in both settings you can change this later


now..go to your current server..run a backup (asuming you have 2 drives in your server)
after thats done..go back to your NEW server..and transfer accounts using the transfer
utility in WHM muiltiable accounts transfer and start transfering..


pay attention to those that may have an issue transfering.. iv ran into a few that didnt..and
just grabbed the backup.tar.gz account back up and did it the other way..for those that had issues.


then after a FULL 72 hours...and you have fully backed up your old server to your new server (accounts)
change the ns1.domainname.com name server IP to the NEW server IP

edit your resolv.conf and nameserverips etc etc etc
restart services..and your good to go..

iv done this many times..and iv NEVER had down time..

now..before you turn off your old server..grab your backups too..so you can restore any accounts that may have changed...which im sure you customers will ask u for..mine do..
transfer these accountbackups.tar.gz to your new server BEFORE you begin step 1..


iv done this using Centos + cpanel..and iv enver had down time..

also too..besure to secure your new server..so all you need to do is tranfer..and eidt conf files where necessary..restart services..and your back in production without issues..


im sorry if i sound out of order when i type all this..iv got the flu so im a bit upside down right now on my typos..lol


OCX

[namehog]

i have always found that when transfering sites between servers, i have to reset the database username on peoples accounts who use a DB, i have to remove the user and re-add it to the DB. I dont know if this is because we were going from RedHat 9 to Enterprise 3 though?

Any ideas?

[celliott]

Well yesterday I began our server transfer and would you believe it, the multiple copy feature in WHM just shucked out 404's at me when I selected any accounts or packages.

I have been working pretty much solid for 8 hours transferring 400 odd accounts using /scripts/pkgacct then moving and extracting. At least its done now

Anyone else has this problem?

[dob3rman]

OK I have followed ivaserver tut to transfer from one WHM to another WHM.

My new WHM was setup by my server company (i rent the server from them, they install redhat and whm). So the hostname and nameservers were something like ns1.privatedns.com and ns2.privatedns.com (i guess they put it by default).

So i followed ivaserver instructions and all the accounts that were created, was added ns1.privatedns.com and ns2.privatesdns.com to it. Which is not the ns1.mydomain.com and ns2.mydomain.com that is suppose to be.

I'm not sure if i am clear enough, but on my old WHM all accounts DNS were pointing to ns1.mydomain.com and ns2.mydomain.com and now the copied accounts on the new WHM are poiting to ns1.privatedns.com and ns2.privatedns.com.

After half of all account transfered, i have removed those two dns (ns1.privatedns.com and ns2.privatedns.com) and added only ns2.mydomain.com. Also i clicked on ADD A entry for this nameserver. And mydomain.com was already transfered to the new WHM with both ns poiting to ns1.privatedns.com and ns2.privatedns.com respectriveley... Im a bit confused and help will be greatly appreciated