ispmanager 6

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Migration from business to host

Migration from business to host

This article describes general complete recommendations and instructions for migrating from ispmanager 6 business to ispmanager 6 host.

Keep in mind that there are many nuances of server configuration and operation and it is impossible to anticipate all of them — each server or cluster should be considered individually and its peculiarities should be taken into account when planning migration.

Preparing for migration

Migration is performed on a pre-configured server running on a supported OS and with ispmanager 6 host panel with the most similar configuration. You will need to:

  1. Set up the destination server in accordance with the requirements;
  2. Install and configure the ispmanager 6 host panel in accordance with the software requirements;
  3. Take into account the  specifics of the panel and software on the source server.

Server requirements

Server resources should be sufficient to cover the usage of the current cluster in the business panel:

  1. Set the size of the root partition (disk) to be at least 20 GB larger than the amount of data to be imported;
  2. Set the amount of RAM that will cover the requirements of all the software from all nodes in the cluster. Remember that after migration you will have one server;
  3. Make sure the OS installed on the server is supported by ispmanager 6 host.

Host panel requirements

The ispmanager 6 host panel should match the configuration of the ispmanager 6 business panel and the cluster nodes as closely as possible:

  1. The initial installation of ispmanager 6 host should be of the current stable version;
  2. Before installing the software and in case of need, convert the OS to CloudLinux;
  3. Next, you can proceed to install all the necessary software, which should match the software from all cluster nodes in the ispmanager 6 business panel.

PLEASE NOTE!

Install all required alternative versions of PHP and DBMS, otherwise the imported sites and databases will be configured to work with a default PHP version and native DBMS respectively.

Additionally, to avoid prolonged downtime:

  1. Ensure that all required modules and global PHP settings are set;
  2. Create the necessary IP address pools with a sufficient number of hosts, especially if the business panel allocates private addresses for users and resellers: note that “Shared” addresses are not suitable for this purpose;
  3. If necessary, perform integration with IPmanager.
  4. Manually create user templates that will be consistent with the templates in the business panel - this is required to correctly import users and apply template parameters;
  5. Change branding settings and configure access to the panel by domain name.

Steps in the business panel

It is crucial to perform the below steps in the business panel:

  1. Be sure to enable shell access for all resellers in the business panel, otherwise the users of the resellers will not be imported!
  2. All custom configuration file templates in the directory /usr/local/mgr5/etc/templates in the business panel must be moved to a similar directory on the server with the host panel.

PLEASE NOTE!

The $USER_PRESET variable in the host panel has the name $PRESET, and the variables $RESELLER_NAME and $RESELLER_PRESET are not present.

If there are custom plugins or addons that need to be set up before entities (users, domains, sites, databases, etc.) are created, consider adapting them for the host panel in advance.

Data migration

It is recommended to increase the session lifetime on both servers directly before starting the migration:

  1. In the configuration file at /usr/local/mgr5/etc/ispmgr.conf, add an AuthenLifeTime directive with a large value, for example, “10000”;
  2. In the configuration file at /usr/local/mgr5/etc/ihttpd.conf, add a timeout directive with a similarly large value;
  3. Restart the panel web server service and the panel using the command service ihttpd restart && /usr/local/mgr5/sbin/mgrctl -m ispmgr exit;

The data migration procedure must be performed using the built-in “User Import” tool via rsync with the “root” user credentials.

Make sure to check and, if necessary, migrate additional service settings from the configuration files. The configurations of the following software should be checked most commonly:

  • Apache;
  • Nginx;
  • MySQL (native and alternative versions);
  • FastCGI handler pools settings (Nginx + PHP-FPM).

Testing

After migration, perform functionality test of all sites. In order not to redirect domains to the new server prematurely, redirection can be configured locally on the device by specifying the domain and IP address mapping in the “hosts” file.

PLEASE NOTE!

If the site configuration has non-standard settings, such configuration must be moved after the final data migration. Otherwise, the configuration files will be overwritten with standard settings during the final migration.

Finalization

Once all sites are checked and operational, you can proceed to finalize the migration:

  1. Re-import data that has undergone changes in the source panel. In this case, be sure to select the “replace existing” option in the “Existing user data” field during import;
  2. Perform a manual migration of configuration files of sites that have non-standard configuration settings;
  3. Redirect domains to the new server by changing their DNS records;
  4. Set up integrations with external services, including the billing system.

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