Ok, so I figured I'd ask the forum on this one, in case anybody has run into this.
We've got some old CPanel shared/reseller hosting servers. They're nearing the end of their useful lives (CentOS 5.11 going EOL and SSL support issues, etc.), and we're doing a forklift upgrade to CentOS 7.1, new hardware, etc.
The population on these servers has dropped since their original deployments, and the new hardware we've spec'd is many multiples more powerful (much due to SSD's vs HDD's). We're looking at a 3:1 consolidation, and still having oodles of space/processor/etc. left over. We don't really want to drop VM's into play, as it'd be nice to reduce management overhead.
Typically when doing moves like this in the past, we would deploy the new hardware, install OS/CPanel/perform basic setup, then rsync all of the content over (using the old cpanel backup script as a reference for what to fetch). We'd rsync a number of times in advance, then on the day it came to actually move, we'd shut down services on the old (namely MySQL and mail), and do one final sync to catch everything before shifting IP's/routing/etc. as necessary. We had several big moves with < 5 minutes of downtime from this method.
In this case, since we want to do a 3:1 consolidation, that's not going to work. The problem is, we don't plan to migrate to new IP's (which seems to be what WHM centers around last I looked), as a slew of customers have custom NS's, setup, and there will literally be a good number of IP's per server once the dust settles (from the SSL, private shared IP's, nameservers, etc.)
What have you folks found works best for this sort of stuff? I realize we can use the pkgacct and restorepkg scripts to pull accounts over [and even set IP's], etc. (but then we'd have some work cut out to ensure every account restored, or got migrated back to their proper IP's [IE: what happens with addon/parked/sub domains in that scenario?], etc.). We've already scanned for conflicts in terms of identical users across the machines we plan to collapse together, etc.
The least amount of downtime possible is preferable, though I'd be keep to do 3 servers a night (aka 1 finished server per night), and hopefully be as clean as possible.... Wouldn't we all?
We've got some old CPanel shared/reseller hosting servers. They're nearing the end of their useful lives (CentOS 5.11 going EOL and SSL support issues, etc.), and we're doing a forklift upgrade to CentOS 7.1, new hardware, etc.
The population on these servers has dropped since their original deployments, and the new hardware we've spec'd is many multiples more powerful (much due to SSD's vs HDD's). We're looking at a 3:1 consolidation, and still having oodles of space/processor/etc. left over. We don't really want to drop VM's into play, as it'd be nice to reduce management overhead.
Typically when doing moves like this in the past, we would deploy the new hardware, install OS/CPanel/perform basic setup, then rsync all of the content over (using the old cpanel backup script as a reference for what to fetch). We'd rsync a number of times in advance, then on the day it came to actually move, we'd shut down services on the old (namely MySQL and mail), and do one final sync to catch everything before shifting IP's/routing/etc. as necessary. We had several big moves with < 5 minutes of downtime from this method.
In this case, since we want to do a 3:1 consolidation, that's not going to work. The problem is, we don't plan to migrate to new IP's (which seems to be what WHM centers around last I looked), as a slew of customers have custom NS's, setup, and there will literally be a good number of IP's per server once the dust settles (from the SSL, private shared IP's, nameservers, etc.)
What have you folks found works best for this sort of stuff? I realize we can use the pkgacct and restorepkg scripts to pull accounts over [and even set IP's], etc. (but then we'd have some work cut out to ensure every account restored, or got migrated back to their proper IP's [IE: what happens with addon/parked/sub domains in that scenario?], etc.). We've already scanned for conflicts in terms of identical users across the machines we plan to collapse together, etc.
The least amount of downtime possible is preferable, though I'd be keep to do 3 servers a night (aka 1 finished server per night), and hopefully be as clean as possible.... Wouldn't we all?
