Virtualising my cPanel Server on VMWare vSphere 4

[bigste]

I am running a VMWare vSphere server and would like to import my physical cPanel server, as it is a bit of an old cranky box.
Whenever, I try to do it I having problems with the import facility not wanting to run on the cPanel server, it complains that there is a Firewall issue. I have diabled the firewall while I attempt this procedure.

has anybody got any advice they can offer?

[ChrisFirth]

Hi,

Is this using the VMWare convertor (VMware vCenter Converter, Convert Physical Machines to Virtual Machines) or something else?

[bigste]

Hi,

Is this using the VMWare convertor (VMware vCenter Converter, Convert Physical Machines to Virtual Machines) or something else?

Initially I was trying to import the Centos cPanel server into my vCentre server using the built-in windows based tool (I think its the same program). I'm thinking that it is only good for Windows machines though.
So, now I have now moved on to installing the linux version of the P2V converter-tool on my cPanel server and am tryint to push/export the server onto the vCentre.
Unfortuanately, the GUI based P2V converter wants to launch xWindows but that has been stripped out of cPanel. Therefore I have finally gone for the CLI converter-tool, but I can't get it to work. It wants an XML file input to describe the job and I'm failing to get that to work.

I'm thinking of installing xWindows to do the conversion and then uninstalling it afterwards.

?

[mordormx]

I did that, i installed X, gnome, just to check that the converter dont let you convert the local machine!, the menu will let you convert any other machine, but not the local, the option is just disabled. Even if you are root.
So.. this is not the alternative.
I read another thread, i think the correct way is to install in a virtual server, install cpanel and make a WHM backup and restore the backup on the new virtual server.
I have to doit the next week. ill post results when is done.

[thaiwebhost]

I did that, i installed X, gnome, just to check that the converter dont let you convert the local machine!, the menu will let you convert any other machine, but not the local, the option is just disabled. Even if you are root.
So.. this is not the alternative.
I read another thread, i think the correct way is to install in a virtual server, install cpanel and make a WHM backup and restore the backup on the new virtual server.
I have to doit the next week. ill post results when is done.

do you success on this solution?

[blweb]

mordormx - Did that end up working out for you? I am in the same situation and would hate to redo all of my customizations on the box that it is currently on. If not, it sounds like the only way to get it working correctly is to go with the route of:

creating a new virtual machine in vsphere.
installing cpanel vps (trial)
do a backup of whm and restore it to the trial server.

[bigste]

mordormx - Did that end up working out for you? I am in the same situation and would hate to redo all of my customizations on the box that it is currently on. If not, it sounds like the only way to get it working correctly is to go with the route of:

creating a new virtual machine in vsphere.
installing cpanel vps (trial)
do a backup of whm and restore it to the trial server.

Back at ya, blweb....

....did that end up working out for you?

• creating a new virtual machine in vsphere.
• installing cpanel vps (trial)
• do a backup of whm and restore it to the trial server.

this sounds like a reasonable solution, and in theory you should be able to tell if it's all working properly before switching over to the vcPanel machine.
Will the trial version allow you to restore a proper version over the top of it?
I guess it's a good way to test out those backups too

[blweb]

That is exactly what we ended up doing. The trial allows you to do everything a normal cpanel server would allow you to do. We configured the box just as we would a normal server, and made sure to mimic our existing environment. Once we got everything configured we then did a whm restore and almost all of the accounts came over correctly. We did run into issues with apache/mysql. Once we got all of the accounts restored and configured, we then ran an rsync on our new VPS box to our old box to pick-up any changes. From that point forward we switched the boxes IP address and began troubleshooting issues as we changed sites IP addresses back to their original configuration(s).

All in all it wasn't as bad as we thought... but it was very time consuming.

Back at ya, blweb....

....did that end up working out for you?

• creating a new virtual machine in vsphere.
• installing cpanel vps (trial)
• do a backup of whm and restore it to the trial server.

this sounds like a reasonable solution, and in theory you should be able to tell if it's all working properly before switching over to the vcPanel machine.
Will the trial version allow you to restore a proper version over the top of it?
I guess it's a good way to test out those backups too

[bigste]

almost all of the accounts came over correctly.
We did run into issues with apache/mysql.
All in all it wasn't as bad as we thought... but it was very time consuming.

Crikey, it's not quite my idea of P2V but if that's all there is to work with it's seems that you've got it fairly well documented.

I might give it a go, it can't be any more hassle than my cranky old server losing another drive

thanks for the advice