SOLVED Transfer Tool Live Transfer

[adeyjones]

Hi, I am just looking for re-assurance before I go ahead with something.

I have an account on a server which contains around 70 websites. I want to transfer this account to my new dedicated server.

50% of the sites I have access to the domains for, 45% are administered by someone else and the other 5% the customers have their own domains.

I originally thought I may have to try and co-ordinate a specific time for me and them to all update DNS on domains at the same time when the account is transferred to minimise downtime, however I think it sounds like Live transfer will make this unnecessary.

If I just go ahead and transfer the account at any time, am I right in thinking the websites will still load fine from the new dedicated server via the old server until the DNS is updated on the domains? And that's also the case with account being suspended on the remote server? And the only time the website may go offline is if the account on the remote server is removed before the DNS is updated?

Thanks, Adrian

 

[kodeslogic]

With the Live Transfer option, the accounts automatically get suspended on the old server and the transferred domains start resolving from the new server. But you'll need need to keep the old server online for the redirection to work.

Once the DNS is updated you can take offline the old server if it will be not used anymore.

 

[adeyjones]

Perfect, thank you. That's what I thought, I just wanted to double check because I have 200+ NHS websites across 3 accounts and it was going to be a nightmare trying to co-ordinate with NHS England, NHS Scotland and a few of the individual organisations for them all to update A/NS records at the exact time I transfer accounts.

So i'll go ahead and transfer all 3 accounts outside of business hours, let it propagate over night, and then get them to change the records as and when they can. Once I confirm they're all done, I can shut down my old servers.

 

[cPRex]

Sounds like you've got a good plan!

 

[adeyjones]

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to have gone to plan. I have transferred one of these accounts, and the .co.uk domains where the nameservers are still pointing to the remote server, they are loading fine from the new server - however the .nhs.uk domains where the A records are pointing to the remote server, the A records on the remote server point to the new server but the websites wont load and I get "Safari can’t open the page “xxx” because the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. This sometimes occurs when the server is busy. Wait for a few minutes and then try again." - have also tried using a VPN incase it hasn't fully propagated and still nothing.

 

[adeyjones]

Unsuspending the account on the remote server brought these sites back online - so why would those domains with NS records pointing to the remote server load fine on the new server, but the domains only with A records pointing to the remote server not?

 

[rbairwell]

The Service Proxying part of the Live Transfer should have redirected people (via a proxy service) to the new server - so it shouldn't have mattered where the nameservers were or if the A record was pointing directly to the old server or not.

Before cPanel had Service Proxying, whenever I did a "whole server transfer", I setup a iptables forwarding rule so requests to ports:
* Web: 80 and 443
* Mail: 25, 26, 110, 143, 465, 587, 993, 995
* DNS: 53
* cPanel: Ports 2077-2095 and 2195
All went to the remote server. I did this by using a command such as iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport <PORT> -j DNAT --to-destination <DESTINATION_SERVER>:<DESTINATION_PORT> - although ConfigServer Firewall (CSF) now has this built in (under "Firewall Redirect").

the .nhs.uk domains where the A records are pointing to the remote server

If the problem is with the A records of the domains now pointing at the *new* server, I would go on the new server and restart Apache and if you are using nginx, rebuild the nginx configuration and restart nginx. I had a similar issue (cPanel support ticket #94477685 - but they were unable to reproduce the problem).

If you want to drop me a message with the domains you are having problems with, I can see if I can diagnose the issue.

 

[cPRex]

It definitely sounds like there is something up with the DNS configuration that is keeping those domains from being proxied to the new machine. You can always submit a ticket to our team to have us take a look!

 

[adeyjones]

Hi @cPRex and @rbairwell

So I transferred the second of my 3 accounts and the same thing happened, the .co.uk domains loaded fine and the .nhs.uk domains would not, until I unsuspended the account on the remote server.

I assumed they were then loading fine on the new server via the remote server, however that appears not to be the case, because about 20 minutes ago I received an email complaint from one of the organisations.

The A records on their .nhs.uk domain were changed this afternoon, and obviously I thought this wouldn't have any effect to the site because it was already loading from the new server anyway, however it seems it was not and all changes he had made to his site this morning need re-migrating because the site was "somehow" still loading on the remote server despite the DNS entries on that server forwarding the A record to the new server.

I get this sounds confusing, but I hope you understand what I mean.

There were 9 .nhs.uk domains updated this afternoon so i'll have to manually re-import the databases for those 9 via phpmyadmin to ensure they haven't lost any data today.

 

[adeyjones]

It definitely sounds like there is something up with the DNS configuration that is keeping those domains from being proxied to the new machine. You can always submit a ticket to our team to have us take a look!

Thanks, have logged this, ticket #94503604

 

[cPRex]

Thanks for that - I'm following along with that ticket on my end now.

 

[cPRex]

Our team found that the proxying didn't work properly due to an issue with the IP address routing on the Destination machine.