Help transferring from failing server

[Lezarwerks]

I need some help transferring users from one that's dying to a new one. My old server has a some bad hard-drive corruption causing the file system to switch to read-only. I'm trying to quickly move my clients to a new server but cPanel on the old server isn't working right. But I do have users home directory backed up.

[madaboutlinux]

The easy thing to do is, get a new server and install cPanel on it. DO NOT add domains on the new server, attach the drive of the old server to the new server as secondary, mount the old drive partitions and rsync all the website data along with the files that cPanel where the account entries are made.

If you try to transfer from old server to new server it will be very time consuming since the drive will go in the read-only mode all the time and may completely die eventually.

[Lezarwerks]

The easy thing to do is, get a new server and install cPanel on it. DO NOT add domains on the new server, attach the drive of the old server to the new server as secondary, mount the old drive partitions and rsync all the website data along with the files that cPanel where the account entries are made.

If you try to transfer from old server to new server it will be very time consuming since the drive will go in the read-only mode all the time and may completely die eventually.

Hi,

Could you describe in more detail how to get the account entries moved to the new server when the drive is attached?

Thanks!

[Spiral]

There is several really good posts on here about using the rsync method but if you are in a hurry and don't have much experience doing that already, I probably wouldn't risk it on your own as you really do need to know what you are doing with that method.

Otherwise, I'd suggest just using the standard multiple account transfer to a new server in WHM or another way is to use /scripts/pkgacct in SSH and then transfer the /home/cpmove-* files.

However, with that said though I can give you hand getting your data and
everything transferred properly if you want to contact me noting you said that you need some help with that.

Question though -- have you tried to see if the drive corruption is repairable or what is causing the corruption in the first place? A drive problem is one possible cause but there could be any of a few hundred other possibilities as well and in many cases, the corruption might be repairable and in the case where it is not, you probably don't want to be corrupting your new server if that is the route you are going to try to resolve this issue.

[Lezarwerks]

There is several really good posts on here about using the rsync method but if you are in a hurry and don't have much experience doing that already, I probably wouldn't risk it on your own as you really do need to know what you are doing with that method.

Otherwise, I'd suggest just using the standard multiple account transfer to a new server in WHM or another way is to use /scripts/pkgacct in SSH and then transfer the /home/cpmove-* files.

However, with that said though I can give you hand getting your data and
everything transferred properly if you want to contact me noting you said that you need some help with that.

Question though -- have you tried to see if the drive corruption is repairable or what is causing the corruption in the first place? A drive problem is one possible cause but there could be any of a few hundred other possibilities as well and in many cases, the corruption might be repairable and in the case where it is not, you probably don't want to be corrupting your new server if that is the route you are going to try to resolve this issue.

Thank you Spiral for helping us migrate! Without your help we would still be at step 1, and probably without a business. =)

+1