Migrating to a Virtual Cloud Server (ISPmanager Control Panel)

26/12/2011 11:18 AM
- Using ISPmanager

Applicable Plans - All Cloud Hosting Plans

Migrating to a Virtual Cloud Server Hosting Plan (ISPmanager Control Panel)

Overview

This User Guide is for eApps customers moving from an existing VPS hosting plan to a new Virtual Server in the Cloud hosting plan that uses ISPmanager as the Control Panel.

Most customer migrations are straight forward and fairly easy to perform but there are situations where our general User Guide does not address customer specific configurations. A “one-size-fits-all” approach is not feasible, but the guide does provide the necessary steps and offers guidance for the general case. You may have to adapt and adjust these steps to your specific needs. If you encounter problems, or have questions, please contact our Support department - support@eapps.com.

You are responsible for moving your files and data to the new Virtual Server, and making all configuration changes to the new VS as required by your applications.

As part of the migration process, eApps will set up a new account for you in the Customer Portal, and create the new Virtual Server and domain subscriptions in that account. So that you are not double billed during the transition, we credit your account for two weeks to give you time to complete the move. If you need more than two weeks, please contact our Billing department at billing@eapps.com so that more time can be arranged.

The general steps to complete a migration are as follows. These steps will be covered in greater detail in the User Guide.

eApps will create a new Virtual Server for you, and send you the login information
You will need to configure the new VS (install applications, create test websites, configure any application servers) and test to ensure that when you do the final cutover, everything will work as expected
When you are ready to do the final cutover and move to the new Virtual Server, you will need to add your domains to the VS DNS Manager, update any files and data, move your mail users and mail files to the VS, and update your test websites so that they are now your actual sites
Once everything is working as expected, you will then need to inform eApps that your migration is complete, so that you are not double-billed for hosting

If you have any questions or problems during the migration process, please contact eApps Support for assistance.

eApps can do the migration for you for a reasonable fee. Contact sales@eapps.com and we will get back to you to discuss your needs and timing. We will provide you a quote for the work and obtain your confirmation before we proceed. Please note that even if eApps does the migration for you, your assistance is required and ultimately it is your responsibility to test your sites to ensure that they are working correctly.

Accessing your new Virtual Server
Installing applications on the Virtual Server

Creating test domains for your web sites
Adding test sites to your Virtual Server

Moving SSL Certificates to the Virtual Server
SSL file locations - VPS
SSL Certificate installation - Virtual Server with ISPmanager

Moving files to the Virtual Server

Setting up your e-mail addresses on your Virtual Server
Adding an E-Mail domain
Creating mailboxes
Creating mailboxes (e-mail addresses) as the root user
Creating mailboxes (e-mail addresses) as the E-mail domain owner
Add mailbox

Final cutover - Moving Files and Domains to your Virtual Server
Move current copies of your files and data to the new Virtual Server (if necessary)
Add your actual domains to the DNS Manager and inform eApps Support

Final cutover - Moving your Mail Files to your Virtual Server
Moving mail files to the Virtual Server - overview
Mail file locations on the VPS
Moving the mail files from the VPS to the Virtual Server
Installing the tools need to convert the mailboxes
Creating the correct folders (directories) for the mail users
Converting the mail files to the correct format

Add the sites to new Virtual Server, using a ServerAlias or by changing the ServerName
Adding your domains as Aliases
Changing the ServerName and ServerAlias

Final Steps

Accessing your new Virtual Server

eApps will create a Virtual Server for you, and try to match it as closely as possible to the resources (RAM, disk, CPU, etc) for your existing VPS. Remember that the Virtual Server in the Cloud plans allow you to easily and quickly increase or decrease your resources, so if you find that you have too much or too little of a resource, you can customize the plan to your exact needs.

Once your Virtual Server has been created, you can access it by going to the Customer Portal - http://portal.eapps.com. Log in with the e-mail address and password associated with your account.

Once you have logged in, click on the Virtual Servers tab at the top of the screen. This takes you to your existing Virtual Servers. To see the details, of the Virtual Server, such as the RAM, CPU shares and Template, click on the View icon to the right of the Virtual Server name (the magnifying glass). You can also see the root password here. To see the IP address for the VS, click on the IP Addresses link. You can use the IP address to connect to the VS via SSH or SFTP.

See the User Guide: Managing your Virtual Servers http://support.eapps.com/portal/vm-mgmt for more information about Virtual Servers and the Customer Portal.

To access your new Virtual Server from the command line, see the User Guide: Connecting to your Virtual Server (SSH and MindTerm) - http://support.eapps.com/ispmgr/ssh and also the User Guide: SFTP and FTP - http://support.eapps.com/ispmgr/sftp_ftp.

Also make sure to review all the User Guides related to the Customer Portal - http://support.eapps.com/portal-docs.

Installing applications on the Virtual Server

You will need to install the applications you need on the new Virtual Server, using ISPmanager. The User Guide: ISPmanager Overview has a section on installing applications, located here - http://support.eapps.com/ispmgr/overview#applications

The User Guides for the applications themselves also have information on how to install. All the ISPmanager User Guides are located here - http://support.eapps.com/ispmanager

Some applications, such as Drupal, WordPress, and Joomla! are now available as Web-scripts from ISPmanager. If you don't see the application you are looking for in the Applications menu in ISPmanager, look in Web-scripts. Information on Web-scripts is found in the User Guide: Installing Applications from Web-scripts - http://support.eapps.com/ispmgr/web-scripts

Please note - it is your responsibility to verify that your existing applications will work with the version of the new application that is available for the Virtual Server. For example, if your existing application uses Tomcat 5, you will need to make sure that it will work with either Tomcat 6 or Tomcat 7.

To see your installed applications on your VPS, go to the PBA Control Panel, at http://cp.eapps.com/cp, and once you are logged in, click on the System tab. If necessary, select the correct subscription from the Subscription drop down at the top of the screen. In the Applications section, click on All Applications. This shows all the applications currently installed on the VPS.

All Applications - VPS

There isn't a one to one correlation for some applications - for example, there is no "Construction-Page" application on the Virtual Server, because that is installed automatically when you create a new website. Also, some applications are not available on the Virtual Server, such as Open Webmail or Majordomo.

If you have questions installing your applications, or how to determine what you should have installed, please contact eApps Support for guidance.

Creating test domains for your web sites

In order to test your web sites before moving the actual domains to the new Virtual Server, you will need to create a test domain for each site. This is done using the DNS Manager in the Customer Portal.

Here is an example of a test domain: if you have the web site of http://eapps-example.com on your existing VPS, you cannot also add the domain of eapps-example.com to the new Virtual Server and have both available at the same time. A domain can only really exist in one place at a time.

Instead, create a test domain of eapps-example.com.vm-host.net, using the Add subdomain section of the DNS Manager, choosing the Provider's Domains of vm-host.net. This will allow you to create an actual domain that resolves correctly and can be used for testing, and that doesn't tie up your existing domain.

Test subdomain

Your actual domains will also be available in the DNS Manger, in the drop down for Available Domains in the Add New Domain section when you go to add a domain. Do not select them at this time, only create the test domains!

You will add the actual domains to the DNS Manager in the second phase of the migration, which will start the process of updating the DNS for those domains to point to the Virtual Server instead of the VPS.

See the User Guide: DNS Manager - http://support.eapps.com/portal/dns for more information about creating domains. Also, make sure to understand that you cannot use the vm-host.net domain for an actual production site. This domain can only be used for testing.

As with any DNS changes, please allow up to 48 hours for the changes to fully propagate, although it usually only takes two to four hours overall.

If any of your sites have SSL Certificates, you may need to acquire an additional IP address for those domains. Each site that uses SSL will need to have a dedicated IP address. If you only have one site using SSL, you can use the default IP address assigned to the Virtual Server for the SSL Certificate.

However, if you have multiple sites using SSL, then you will need to have a separate IP address assigned to each site for the individual SSL Certificates to work correctly, which is exactly how the configuration worked on the VPS plans.

If you need to add additional IP addresses, it is better to acquire them now so that there is no delay in processing the order at cutover time.

To acquire additional IP addresses, go to the Upgrade/Downgrade section of the Customer Portal for that Virtual Server. You can adjust the slider for IP Addresses to the number of IP addresses that you need to order. The cost for an additional IP address is $1.00 per month.

See the User Guide: Upgrading/Downgrading Resources - http://support.eapps.com/portal/up-down for more information.

Instructions on how to transfer your SSL Certificates from your existing VPS to your new Virtual Server are found here - Moving SSL Certificates to the Virtual Server.

Adding test sites to your Virtual Server

In order to accurately test your web sites and web applications, you will need to create test web sites on your new Virtual Server, and then bring copies of your files and data to the new VS and replicate your configuration. This is the best way to make sure that everything works as you expect before fully cutting over your sites to the new Virtual Server.

To see the current configuration for a VPS site, go to the PBA Control Panel at https://cp.eapps.com/cp and once you are logged in, click on the Site tab. If necessary, select the correct subscription from the Subscriptions drop down menu at the top of the screen.

In the Website Management section, click on Website Settings. This shows the information about the existing site. Also make sure to look at the Custom Settings tab to record any special settings there that need to be transferred to the new VS. If you have any .htaccess files or any other customizations you have set up for your VPS web sites, make sure to record those settings or have copies of the files to be transferred to the new Virtual Server. It is a good idea to look at every tab in Website Settings to make sure that you record any other changes or customizations that were made to the website.

To create a website on the new Virtual Server, you will need to add the site to WWW domains in ISPmanager. See the User Guide: Creating WWW domains (Websites) using ISPmanager for more information - http://support.eapps.com/ispmgr/website-create

There are some major differences in how websites are set up and configured between a VPS and a Virtual Server using ISPmanager, mainly in the location of the DocumentRoot and how the domain owner is configured. Please read the Creating WWW domains (Websites) user guide carefully.

Moving SSL Certificates to the Virtual Server

If you have SSL Certificates for any sites on your VPS, those SSL certs will have to be moved to the new Virtual Server. The configuration and installation of SSL Certificates is very different on the Virtual Servers than it is on the VPSs, so please see the User Guide: SSL Certificates - http://support.eapps.com/ispmgr/ssl-certs for more information.

Remember that if you have multiple SSL certificates, you will need a dedicated IP address for each domain that has an SSL certificate.

If you need assistance moving your SSL certificates to your new Virtual Server, please contact eApps Support for assistance.

SSL file locations - VPS

On the VPS, you can find the files for the SSL certificates in two places - in the Website Settings for the website in the Control Panel, or from the command line of the VPS. There are generally two files you will need to move: the actual SSL certificate itself, and the private key that was used to generate that SSL certificate. If you have an SSL certificate from at third party vendor (not purchased through eApps), then you may need to check with that vendor to make sure you are getting all the necessary files.

SSL files - VPS Control Panel

To find the SSL files in the Control Panel, go to the PBA Control Panel, at http://cp.eapps.com/cp, and once you are logged in, click on the System tab. If necessary, click on the Select Another System (Subscriptions) link on the left, and choose the correct Virtuozzo Container system. Then, click on the Site tab, and if necessary click on Select Another Site and select the correct site.

Click on Website Settings, and then click on the Secure Website tab (which is on the right). The SSL certificate and key files are found near the top of the screen. The SSL certificate is found in the SSL certificate details link, and the private key is found in the SSL private key details link.

PBA SSL files location

When you click on the link for SSL certificate details, you will see a screen similar to this:

SSL Certificate file - PBA

What you want to do is copy and paste the contents of the Certificate Content area, starting with and making sure to include the ----BEGIN CERTIFICATE---- line, and ending with and including the ----END CERTIFICATE---- line.

When you click on the link for SSL private key details, you will see a screen similar to this:

SSL private key - PBA

What you want to do is copy and paste the contents of the Private key content area, starting with and making sure to include the ----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY---- line, and ending with and including the ----END RSA PRIVATE KEY---- line.

Once you have copied the files, make sure to paste them into a plain text editor, such as Notepad, Notepad++ (for Windows) or TextEdit for (Mac OS X) in plain text mode.

Do not paste these files into a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word, Wordpad, Pages, or LibreOffice Writer. An actual word processor will insert invisible control characters into the file, and these control characters can cause problems when trying to use the SSL files on the new VS.

SSL files - VPS command line

On the VPS, the SSL certificate files are located in the /etc/httpd/conf directory. There are two files to get - the actual SSL Cert file, and the Private key file for that SSL Cert. There will be a separate file for each SSL Certificate you have installed.

The SSL Certificate file is located in the /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt directory, and will be named similar to eapps-example.com.hspc.crt. The file itself will look like this:

What you want to do is copy and paste the contents of the file, starting with and making sure to include the ----BEGIN CERTIFICATE---- line, and ending with and including the ----END CERTIFICATE---- line.

The private key is located in the /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key directory, and will be named similar to eapps-example.com.hspc.key. The file itself will look like this:

What you want to do is copy and paste the contents of the file, starting with and making sure to include the ----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY---- line, and ending with and including the ----END RSA PRIVATE KEY---- line.

Once you have copied the files, make sure to paste them into a plain text editor, such as Notepad, Notepad++ (for Windows) or TextEdit for (Mac OS X) in plain text mode.

SSL Certificate installation - Virtual Server with ISPmanager

With ISPmanager, you need to make sure that SSL is enabled for the website where you want to use the SSL certificate. See the User Guide: SSL Certificates - http://support.eapps.com/ispmgr/ssl-certs#ssl-enabled-for-the-website for more information before continuing.

SSL Certificate installation - ISPmanager

In ISPmanager, the SSL certificates have to be installed as the Domain owner for the WWW domain, not as the root user. You can either log in as the root user and switch users to the WWW domain owner, or log in as the WWW domain owner.

If you log in as the root user, go to Domains > WWW domains, and click on the name of the domain to highlight it. Then click on Enter in the upper right corner. This will switch you to the owner of the WWW domain. Now go to World Wide Web > SSL certificates. Highlight the domain name for the SSL certificate, and click on New in the upper right corner of the screen.

If you log in as the WWW domain owner, go to World Wide Web > SSL certificates. Highlight the domain name for the SSL certificate, and click on New in the upper right corner of the screen.

For either user, this opens the Add SSL certificate screen. In the Certificate type drop down list, choose existing.

Add SSL certificate - default

Name - this is a name to help you identify the SSL certificate, this is NOT the domain name being used by the SSL certificate. The name has to be one word, with no spaces.
Certificate type - this should be set to existing.
Certificate key - enter your SSL certificate key file here. This file would have been distributed with your SSL certificate, and is a plain text file consisting of letters and numbers.
Certificate - enter your SSL certificate here. This will be a plain text file consisting of letters and numbers.
Password - if you set a password on the SSL certificate, enter it here.
Certificates chain - some SSL certificates require an additional certificate, sometimes called an intermediate certificate. If you have one of those, enter it here.

Once you have entered the information from the SSL certificate, click OK. This writes the SSL certificate files to the system, and you can now use them with the correct domain.

As an example, here is the Add SSL certificate screen with the information filled in.

Add SSL certificate

Once you have added the information, click OK. This adds the SSL certificate to the VS, but it does not actually install the SSL certificate for use. In other words, https is not yet working for this domain. You can see this because there will be a blue lightbulb under Status for this SSL certificate. This means that it is not active.

To install the SSL certificate, highlight the name of the SSL certificate that was installed, and then click on Install in the upper right corner of the screen.

Install SSL Certificate

Once you have clicked on Install, you will be asked if you want to install the SSL certificate. Click OK to install it. Now the domain should work correctly with https.

Moving files to the Virtual Server

Once your test WWW domains are in place, you can move copies of your existing files and data to the new Virtual Server. Generally this is done using FTP or SFTP, but you can also use command line tools such as scp if you are familiar with them.

eApps Support can assist you in determining the best method to move your files from the old VPS to the new Virtual Server. Depending on the nature of the work, we may be able to move some files for you. However, if moving the files will require significant work, then that will be considered a billable task at $15 per 10 minute increment.

For a small site with mostly static files, SFTP or FTP may be enough - you would download the files to your local computer, and then upload them to the new Virtual Server.

There are differences in the set up for FTP/SFTP between the VPS and Virtual Servers, so you will need to read all the relevant User Guides if you are using this method to transfer files.

The VPS User Guides for FTP and SFTP are here:

FTP - http://support.eapps.com/vps/ftp
SFTP - http://support.eapps.com/vps/sftp

The Virtual Server User Guide for SFTP/FTP is here:

FTP and SFTP - http://support.eapps.com/ispmgr/sftp_ftp

For sites using application frameworks and extensive customizations and databases, more complex methods such as scp, tar, and mysqldump may be needed. You will need to evaluate your sites and determine which methods you need to use to move your files and data to the new Virtual Server.

You should also look over the User Guides for your existing applications for both the VPS and Virtual Server platforms, because those User Guides will tell you where to look for your existing files and data on the VPS, and also where to put the files and data on the Virtual Server.

The User Guides for the VPS hosting plans are here - http://support.eapps.com/vps-docs, and the application User Guides for the Virtual Server in the Cloud hosting plans are here - http://support.eapps.com/ispmanager.

Setting up your e-mail addresses on your Virtual Server

Generally, moving any mail files from the VPS to the Virtual Server would be one of the last things you would do. However, you can go ahead and set up the e-mail addresses on the Virtual Server before you point the DNS for the actual domain to your new VS. This will allow you to save a step when the final cut over is in progress. These e-mail addresses will not receive any mail until the DNS is pointing to the new VS.

How to move your mailbox files over to the new VS and converting them to the correct format is covered in the Moving your mail files to the Virtual Server section.

On the VPS systems, there were two kinds of e-mail addresses: a "user@(multiple domains)" and a "user@domain.com". On the VSs, there is no "user@(multiple domains)" option. Every e-mail user has to be tied to a specific domain. This means that if you have "user@(multiple domains)" users that actually received e-mail at multiple domains, you will need to add that user to each domain, and then use mail forwarding to have all the e-mail delivered to one address.

Even though there are no longer two types of e-mail addresses on the new VS, you will still need to know what kind of e-mail address each user had on the VPS, so that you know where the mailbox files for that user are located. To see how each user is currently configured, go to the PBA Control Panel, at http://cp.eapps.com/cp, and once you are logged in, click on the System Tab. If necessary, click on the Select Another System (Subscriptions) link on the left, and choose the correct Virtuozzo Container system. Scroll down to Mail Management, and then click on Mailboxes. This will show you each user, and whether they are a specific domain or multiple domain user. You can also see if the mailbox is a forward. Make a note of how each mailbox is set up so that you will know where to look for the mail files when it is time to bring them over to the new VS.

PBA CP Mailboxes

Adding an E-Mail domain

To add e-mail addresses, you have to add the domain as an E-Mail domain first. To do this in ISPmanager as the root user, go to Domains > E-Mail domains. Click on New in the upper right corner of the screen. This opens the Add e-mail domain screen.

The menu options in Add e-mail domain have tool tips that are available if you hover your cursor over the menu item. You can also click on the built-in Help in the upper right hand corner.

Add e-mail domain

Domain name - enter the E-mail domain here. Remember that this domain will not start to receive any e-mail until the DNS records are updated.
Default action - if a user from this domain sends an e-mail to an address that doesn't exist, the receiving server will normally send a reply back telling the sender that the receiver doesn't exist. This is usually called a "bounce". From the drop down list, you can choose what happens to the bounce e-mail:
- reply error - this will deliver a message to the sender that the recipient does not exit. This is the recommended default.
- ignore and drop - the bounce message will be ignored and dropped by the mail server.
- redirect to e-mail address - this forwards the bounce message to another e-mail address.
- redirect to domain - if the recipient does not exist, the sender will be prompted for another domain to sent it to.
Owner - select the user who will "own" the E-mail domain from the drop down list. This is usually the owner of WWW domain of the same name.

Once you have added the E-mail domain, click OK. This takes you back to the E-mail domains screen, and the new E-mail domain will be listed.

Creating mailboxes

After the E-mail domain has been created, you can add the e-mail addresses to the system.

The e-mail addresses can be added in two ways: they can be added by the system administrator (the root user), or by the owner of the E-mail domain - the user created in the Add User screen. The E-mail domain owner only has access to a limited set of ISPmanager functions, all of which are related directly to their specific domain. They have no access to the system administrator functions for the entire Virtual Server.

For either method, log in to ISPmanager as the correct user (root or the domain owner). How you log in determines where you will need to navigate to in ISPmanager.

Note that this only touches on the basics of adding a mailbox. For more information on E-mail management, such as adding auto-responders and setting up forwarding, please see the User Guide: Managing E-mail - http://support.eapps.com/ispmgr/managing-email.

Creating mailboxes (e-mail addresses) as the root user

To create an e-mail address as the root user, log in to ISPmanager as root, and go to Domains > E-mail domains.

Click on the E-mail domain name where you want to add e-mail addresses, and then click on Boxes in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

This takes you to the Mailboxes page. Click on New in the upper right corner. This opens the Add mailbox screen.

Creating mailboxes (e-mail addresses) as the E-mail domain owner

With ISPmanager, the owner of the E-mail domain can create mailboxes for the users of that domain. Log in to ISPmanager with the username and password for the owner of the E-mail domain.

Once logged in, go to E-Mail > Mailboxes. This goes to the Mailboxes page. Click on New in the upper right corner. This opens the Add mailbox screen.

Add mailbox

Once you have logged in and navigated to the section where you can create a mailbox, you will need to fill in the Add mailbox form.

The menu options in Add mailbox have tool tips that are available if you hover your cursor over the menu item. You can also click on the built-in Help in the upper right hand corner.

Add mailbox

Name - this is the part of the e-mail address before the @example.com, called the local-part. This must be in lowercase letters, and the numbers 0 - 9 are allowed.
Domain - select the domain for the e-mail address from the drop down list.
Alias(es) - enter any other names for this mailbox here.
Password - if you know the password, enter it here. Otherwise click on the button to the right of the text box to have one auto generated for you, and make a note of that so you can give it to the user, who will need to update their e-mail client with the new password. The E-mail User Guide has instructions on how a user can change their password back to what it was before if they want to.
Re-enter password - re-enter the password. If you had a password auto generated for you, it will automatically be filled in.
Size - enter a mailbox size here. The size will be in Megabytes (MB). The default of 0 (zero) actually means unlimited in this context.
Send a copy to - you can forward the e-mails sent to this mailbox to the users you list in the text box.
Don't save incoming e-mails - this is only valid if you are forwarding the e-mails from this mailbox via the Send a copy to option.

Once you have added the mailbox, click OK. This takes you to the Mailboxes page, and the new mailbox is listed. Do this for every mailbox you need to add on the Virtual Server.

Final cutover - Moving Files and Domains to your Virtual Server

Once your testing is complete and you are satisfied with the configuration of your Virtual Server, you can start the process to do the final cutover and move to your new Virtual Server. This will involve adding your actual domains to the DNS Manager, bringing over any updated files and data for your sites and applications, adding your mail users and mail files to the VS, and finally configuring your test websites to use the correct domain names.

The final cutover is usually done all at once, while the DNS changes for the domains are still propagating. Once you make the DNS changes, you need to be ready to move your files and e-mails right away.

Move current copies of your files and data to the new Virtual Server (if necessary)

If you have a static site, then you may not need to bring over any files or data for the final cut over, or at most only a few recently changed files.

However, if you have dynamic or interactive sites, such as eCommerce sites or sites with a lot of database usage, you may need to do the second phase of the migration at a time when you can stop the database service and any application servers such as JBoss or Tomcat so that you can capture the current state of the files.

How and when you do this will depend on your sites and configuration, as well as your users and their expectations. You will need to determine the best time and strategy for this.

Your testing should have shown you the optimal way to transfer your files and data to the new Virtual Server. If you still need assistance, please contact eApps Support for guidance.

Add your actual domains to the DNS Manager and inform eApps Support

As part of setting up your new Virtual Server subscription, new subscriptions for your domains will also be created in your account. What this means is that the domains will be available to select in the DNS Manager, but not actually active for your account yet.

To add your domains to DNS Manager, click on Add Domain, and in the ADD NEW DOMAIN screen, select the domain from the Available Domains drop down menu. Make sure to select the correct IP address for the domain, if you have more than one IP available.

See the User Guide: DNS Manager - http://support.eapps.com/portal/dns for more information about managing domains.

Once you have added the domains to the DNS Manager, immediately contact eApps Tech Support and let them know you have done this!!. The backend DNS settings for each domain has to manually updated by eApps Support - if you do not inform eApps Support that you have added your domains to the DNS Manager, then the DNS for them WILL NOT PROPAGATE to the Virtual Server IP addresses.

You can contact eApps Support by e-mail at support@eapps.com, or by phone at US +1 (770) 448 2100 or UK +44 (0)20 8133 6940. You can also use Skype - eAppsHosting.

Final cutover - Moving your Mail Files to your Virtual Server

Moving your mail files from the VPS to the Virtual Server is one of the last steps of the migration process. Depending on the number of mail users you have, and the sizes of their mailboxes, it can also be one of more complicated aspects of the migration.

If you need assistance moving your mail files from the VPS to the VS, please contact eApps Support. If there are only a few users worth of mail files to move, this may be done for you as part of our normal support. However, if you have a large number of mail files, this may have to be a billable task due to the time it will take to do the work.

In general, the steps to moving your e-mail from the VPS to the Virtual Server are as follows. Each step will be covered in this User Guide, or have a pointer to the User Guide which explains what you need to do. This also assumes that you have already added the required E-Mail domains to ISPmanager, and have also added the Mailboxes for each user.

Move the mail files from the VPS to the Virtual Server and unpack in the /tmp directory
Navigate to the mail files, and note the directory structure for each user - for example, the names of any folders in the imap/ or openwebmail/mail directories
Install the tools needed to convert the mailboxes to the new format used by the VS (a Perl application and a Perl module)
Install PHP (if needed), and install the Webmail (SquirrelMail) application
Log in to SquirrelMail as each mail user, and create any folders needed by the user. By default SquirrelMail creates an INBOX, Drafts, Sent, and Trash folders. You will need to create any additional folders needed by the user.
Convert the mail files, user by user and directory by directory.

All of the mail migration has to be done from the command line of both the VPS and the Virtual Server. You will need to be able to connect to both the VPS and the VS using SSH, and be able to work as the root user. You will also need an understanding of basic Linux commands and how to navigate the Linux filesystem.

Moving mail files to the Virtual Server - overview

The best practice is to stop the mail service on the old VPS so that it no longer accepts new e-mail, and then move the mail files over to the new Virtual Server as quickly as possible.

While there is a slight risk of missing some e-mails, the chance of that is very low. A properly configured mail server will try to resend an e-mail every four hours over the course of five days before giving up, meaning that if e-mails bound for your users find your mail server off, they should eventually get delivered once the mail server on the new Virtual Server is accepting mail.

You will want to move your mail files just after associating the domains to the new Virtual Server, so that the DNS changes can start to point the e-mail to the Virtual Server.

If you have a lot of mail users, you will need to coordinate with them so that you can cut over the e-mail at a time when they are least inconvenienced. If you are having eApps do the migration for you, it is still your responsibility to work with your users on the best time to cut the e-mail over.

If your users keep their e-mail on the VPS, then you will need to make sure to move all the required files from the old VPS to the new Virtual Server.

If you are using SpamTitan or SpamExperts, make sure to verify in the SpamTitan and SpamExperts Admin control panels that your e-mail is being delivered correctly.

Mail file locations on the VPS

As part of setting up the new e-mail accounts on the Virtual Server, you should have made a note of what type of user the account was - either a "user@(multiple domains)*" user or a "user@domain.com*" user. This determines exactly where their mail files are located on the VPS.

If the user is a "user@(multiple domains)" user, their mail files will generally be in two places:

/var/spool/mail/username
/home/username/mail

If the user is an IMAP or Open Webmail user, there may be a lot of files and directories under the /home/username/mail directory that will need to be moved.

If the user is a "user@domain.com" user, their mail files will be in these locations:

/var/spool/vmail/domain.com/mail/username 
/var/spool/vmail/domain.com/imap/username
/var/spool/vmail/domain.com/openwebmail/username

For the 'user@domain.com' users, the most common thing to do is to simply move the entire /var/spool/vmail directory if you are moving all domains to the Virtual Server, or the /var/spool/vmail/domain.com directory if only certain domains are being moved.

Moving the mail files from the VPS to the Virtual Server

It is possible to download the mail files from the old VPS to your computer and then upload them to the new Virtual Server using SFTP (FTP will not work, because you will need root user permissions). However, this method is cumbersome and time consuming, especially if there are large files or a lot of files to move.

The best way to move the files is to use SSH, tar, gzip and scp to connect to the VPS, compress the files, and then copy them to the new Virtual Server. The following is an example of how to do this - you will need to adjust for your files and locations, but the general premise is the same.

This example shows how to move the mail files on the VPS for the eapps-example.com domain located in /var/spool/vmail/eapps-example.com to the new Virtual Server of eapps-example.com.vm-host.net. Please substitute your actual domain names and VPS/Virtual Server names where necessary.

First, connect to the old VPS using SSH - http://support.eapps.com/vps/ssh - and become the root user. Then navigate to the /var/spool/vmail directory:

[root@eapps-example ~]# cd /var/spool/vmail/
[root@eapps-example vmail]# ll
total 36
drwxr-xr-x 7 mail mail 4096 Feb 13 14:00 eapps-example.com
[root@eapps-example vmail]#

Use tar and gzip to compress the eapps-example.com directory. The command syntax is: tar cvpzf directory_name.tar.gz directory_name/

For the tar command, the "c" flag is to create the named directory, the "v" flag shows what is happening (v is for verbose), the "p" flag keeps the permissions intact, the "z" flag is to use gzip and the "f" flag calls the file. You can use these switches in any order. See the tar man page (man tar from the command line) for more information.

Note that the compressed file is named first, then the directory to be compressed. You can name the file whatever you want, but general convention is to name it the same as the directory you are compressing, and with a tar.gz suffix.

[root@eapps-example vmail]# tar cvpzf eapps-example.com.tar.gz eapps-example.com/
eapps-example.com/
eapps-example.com/auth/
eapps-example.com/auth/admin
eapps-example.com/auth/user
eapps-example.com/mail/
eapps-example.com/mail/admin
eapps-example.com/mail/user
eapps-example.com/autoresponder/
eapps-example.com/openwebmail/
eapps-example.com/openwebmail/admin/
eapps-example.com/openwebmail/user/
eapps-example.com/lists/
[root@eapps-example vmail]#
[root@eapps-example vmail]# ll
total 40
drwxr-xr-x 7 mail mail 4096 Feb 9 11:00 eapps-example.com
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2473 May 24 11:56 eapps-example.com.tar.gz
[root@eapps-example vmail]#

Note the size difference when using tar and gzip together to compress the directory. This makes the directory easier to move from the VPS to the Virtual Server. Smaller size means less time to move from one location to another.

[root@eapps-example vmail]# du -hs eapps-example.com
56K eapps-example.com
[root@eapps-example vmail]# du -hs eapps-example.com.tar.gz
4.0K eapps-example.com.tar.gz
[root@eapps-example vmail]#

To move the compressed file to the Virtual Server, use the scp command. scp stands for secure copy, and is part of the SSH protocol. More information on scp can be found here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_copy. There is also extensive documentation about scp online.

To use scp, you will need to know the root password on the new Virtual Server, and know the absolute path to the location where you want to copy the files to on the VS - in this case you are moving the files to the /tmp directory.

The scp command is: scp -r file_to_be_copied hostname_of_new_VS:/absolute/path/to/file/location
You can also substitute the IP address of the new Virtual Server for the hostname if necessary.

[root@eapps-example vmail]# scp -r eapps-example.com.tar.gz eapps-example.com.vm-host.net:/tmp
root@eapps-example.com.vm-host.net's password:
eapps-example.com.tar.gz 100% 2473 2.4KB/s 00:00
[root@eapps-example vmail]#

Once you have moved the mail files to the Virtual Server, you will need to log in to the VS using SSH, and then navigate to the /tmp directory and unpack the files.

[root@example ~]# cd /tmp
[root@example tmp]# ll
total 67040
drwx------ 3 root   root        4096 Nov 28 19:32 r1soft-cki.QaZakZ
drwx------ 2 root   root        4096 Dec 15 12:43 ssh-poEvR17515
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root    68498314 Dec 15 10:56 eapps-example.com.tar.gz
[root@example tmp]#

Once you have navigated to the /tmp directory, you will need to untar the directory that was brought over from the old VPS. The command syntax is: tar xvzf filename.tar.gz

For the tar command, the "x" is to extract the files, the "v" flag shows what is happening (v is for verbose), the "z" flag is to use gunzip and the "f" flag calls the file. You can use these switches in any order. See the tar man page (man tar from the command line) for more information.

[root@example tmp]# tar xvzf eapps-example.com.tar.gz
eapps-example.com/
eapps-example.com/auth/
eapps-example.com/auth/admin
eapps-example.com/auth/user
eapps-example.com/mail/
eapps-example.com/mail/admin
eapps-example.com/mail/user
eapps-example.com/autoresponder/
eapps-example.com/openwebmail/
eapps-example.com/openwebmail/admin/
eapps-example.com/openwebmail/user/
eapps-example.com/lists/
[root@example tmp]# ll
total 67040
drwx———    3 root   root       4096 Nov 28 19:32 r1soft-cki.QaZakZ
drwx———    2 root   root       4096 Dec 15 12:43 ssh-poEvR17515
-rw-r—r—   1 root   root   68498314 Dec 15 10:56 eapps-example.com.tar.gz
drwxr-xr-x 7 mail   mail       4096 Feb 9 11:00 eapps-example.com
[root@example tmp]#

At this point, change directories to the directory that contains the mail files (in this example, the eapps-example.com directory), and make a note of the files and directories located there for each user.

Installing the tools need to convert the mailboxes

The mailboxes on the VPS use what is known as mbox format, where all the e-mail for for each mailbox for a user is kept in one large text file. The mailboxes for the Virtual Server use what is known as maildir format, where every e-mail message for a user is kept as a separate file in the appropriate directory.

If you are interested in learning more about these formats, you can view the Wikipedia page for each, which have links to further information:

mbox - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbox
maildir - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir

What this means to you is that you cannot simply copy the mailbox files from the VPS to the VS, they will have to be converted from mbox to maildir format using a command line tool called perfect_maildir.pl. This tool has to be downloaded from the Internet, and a Perl module must also be installed from ISPmanager for it to work correctly.

To get the perfect_maildir.pl tool, you will need to use the wget command, which is a command line tool to download files from a website. The syntax for the wget command to download the file is wget http://perfectmaildir.home-dn.net/perfect_maildir/perfect_maildir.pl (all on one line).

[root@eapps-example tmp]# wget http://perfectmaildir.home-dn.net/perfect_maildir/perfect_maildir.pl
--2011-12-15 14:17:33-- http://perfectmaildir.home-dn.net/perfect_maildir/perfect_maildir.pl
Resolving perfectmaildir.home-dn.net... 88.191.135.237, 2a01:e0b:1:135:ca0a:a9ff:fec8:f061
Connecting to perfectmaildir.home-dn.net|88.191.135.237|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 4103 (4.0K) [text/x-perl]
Saving to: “perfect_maildir.pl”

100%[==========================================================>] 4,103 --.-K/s in 0.1s

2011-12-15 14:17:34 (39.6 KB/s) - “perfect_maildir.pl” saved [4103/4103]

[root@eapps-example tmp]#

Once the perfect_maildir.pl application is installed on the VS, you will need to set it to be executable. Do this with the chmod +x perfect_maildir.pl command.

[root@eapps-example tmp]# ll perfect_maildir.pl
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4103 Oct 31 2004 perfect_maildir.pl
[root@eapps-example tmp]# chmod +x perfect_maildir.pl
[root@eapps-example tmp]# ll perfect_maildir.pl
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4103 Oct 31 2004 perfect_maildir.pl
[root@eapps-example tmp]#

After perfect_maildir.pl is installed, you will need to install a Perl module on the VS from ISPmanager. Log in to ISPmanager as root, and go to Server Settings > Perl modules. Click on Install. This opens the Add Perl module screen. From the drop down list, find the perl-TimeDate-1.16-11.1.el6 module. You will need to scroll down fairly far to find this.

Add Perl module

Once you have located the module, click OK to install it. Once this is done, you will be able to use the perfect_maildir.pl application from the command line to convert the mailboxes.

Creating the correct folders (directories) for the mail users

There are two ways you can create the correct folders for the mail users - by having the mail users go ahead and switch their e-mail clients to point to the new VS (SMTP server and POP/IMAP server entries) and then trying to check their e-mail, or by installing the WebMail application (SquirrelMail) on the VS, and logging in as each user and creating the folders for them. Which method you choose depends on which works best for you and your users. A combination of both methods may work also.

You cannot create the folders in the Maildir directories manually. If you do so, the folders will not been seen by the mail clients.

The reason that the folders have to be in place before converting the mail is that the conversion has to be done on a user by user, folder by folder basis. If your users have mail in folders that they kept on the VPS, those folders will have to be recreated and the mail converted into each folder.

For your e-mail clients, you may not need to do any re-configuration, assuming you are keeping the hostnames the same for the SMTP and POP/IMAP servers.

If you need to install the WebMail (SquirrelMail) application, see the SquirrelMail User Guide - http://support.eapps.com/ispmgr/squirrelmail for more information.

Converting the mail files to the correct format

At this point, you should have:

Created the E-Mail domains
Added the mailboxes
Switched your DNS to point to the new Virtual Server
Brought the mail files over from the VPS and unpacked them in the /tmp directory
Downloaded the perfect_maildir.pl tool and installed the required Perl module
Set up the correct folders for each mail user

If all of this has been done, you can start the process to convert the folders for each user. Remember that this has to be done user by user, folder by folder, and has to be done from the command line of the Virtual Server.

Change directories to the /tmp directory on the VS, which is where you moved the mail files from the VPS, and where you installed the perfect_maildir.pl script.

Converting the INBOX

To convert the INBOX for a user, use the following syntax. This uses absolute paths for both the source and destination directories.

./perfect_maildir.pl /path/to/maildir/directory < /path/to/mail/INBOX

Here is an example of converting the INBOX for user, who is part of the eapps-example.com domain, owned by the test_user. Please note that the command must be all on one line.

./perfect_maildir.pl /var/www/test_user/data/email/eapps-example.com/user/.maildir < /tmp/eapps-example.com/mail/user

[root@eapps-example tmp]# ./perfect_maildir.pl /var/www/test_user/data/email/eapps-example.com/user/.maildir/ < /tmp/eapps-example.com/mail/user
Use of uninitialized value $date in string at ./perfect_maildir.pl line 93, <STDIN> line 25.</span><br style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,monospace; color: white;"> <span style="font-family: Courier New,Courier,monospace; color: white;">Use of uninitialized value $delivered_time in concatenation (.) or string at ./perfect_maildir.pl line 109, <STDIN> line 25.
Use of uninitialized value $delivered_time in utime at ./perfect_maildir.pl line 135, <STDIN> line 76.
Inserted 55 messages into maildir /var/www/test_user/data/email/eapps-example.com/user/.maildir/ in 0 seconds
[root@eapps-example tmp]#

The first time you run the command, you will receive a few status messages from the program. These messages can be ignored. What you are looking for is a line similar to this one:

Inserted 55 messages into maildir /var/www/test_user/data/email/eapps-example.com/user/.maildir/ in 0 seconds

This line tells you that the conversion was successful. If the conversion was not successful, you will see several obvious errors instead.

Converting any folders for the user

If the user has any folders that exist in their mailbox, you will need to convert them also. The command syntax is similar, but you have to point directly at the directory for the folder for the user. Note that the directory for the folder in the Maildir directory starts with a dot (.).

./perfect_maildir.pl /path/to/maildir/directory/.foldername < /path/to/mail/foldername

Here is an example of converting the Saved folder for user, who is part of the eapps-example.com domain, owned by the test_user. Please note that the command must be all on one line.

./perfect_maildir.pl /var/www/test_user/data/email/eapps-example.com/user/.maildir/.Saved/ < eapps-example.com/openwebmail/user/mail/saved-messages

[root@eapps-example tmp]# ./perfect_maildir.pl /var/www/test_user/data/email/eapps-example.com/user/.maildir/.Saved/ < eapps-example.com/openwebmail/user/mail/saved-messages
Inserted 11 messages into maildir /var/www/test_user/data/email/eapps-example.com/user/.maildir/.Saved/ in 1 seconds
[root@eapps-example tmp]#

Again, you will need to do this conversion user by user, folder by folder. Once the mail files from the VPS are in place, the required folders created, and the tools to do the conversion available, the process is fairly straightforward.

Add the sites to new Virtual Server, using a ServerAlias or by changing the ServerName

The sites from the old VPS should now be up and working on the new Virtual Server, using the testing domain names. All the files and data should be in place, and any web applications should be working as expected.

The actual domains for each site should also now be in the DNS Manager, so that the DNS changes are starting to propagate and point to the new Virtual Server.

The last step is to set up your test websites so that they use your actual domain names, instead of the testing domain names. This can be done in one of two ways:

Add your actual domains as Aliases to the existing test domains (can be done in ISPmanager)
Change the ServerName and ServerAlias to the actual domain name in the VirtualHost block in the Apache config file and restart Apache (can be done in ISPmanager or from the command line)

There is also a third way - adding the actual domain as a WWW domain, and then moving all your files and data to the actual domain directories from the test domain directories. However, this involves redoing all the previous work that was done setting up the test domains, so only choose this route if you absolutely need to.

Adding your domains as Aliases

To add your actual domains as aliases to the test domains, log in to ISPmanager as the root user, and go to Domains > WWW domains.

Click on the Name of the test domain to highlight it, and then click on Edit in the upper right corner of the page. This opens the Edit WWW domain screen. Click the up and down arrow button to the right of the Alias(es) field, and add the actual domain name as an Alias.

Edit WWW domain - add Aliases

Assuming that you have the DNS for the actual domain pointing correctly at the new Virtual Server, you should now be able to browse to your actual domain name and see the files you brought over and tested.

Changing the ServerName and ServerAlias

You can also change the ServerName and ServerAlias for the test website to have the actual domain name. This has to be changed in the Apache web server config file (httpd.con), and can be done from either ISPmanager or from the command line of the Virtual Server. For either method, you will need to restart the Apache web server, which can be done from ISPmanager or the command line also.

ISPmanager

To make this change in ISPmanager, log in as root, and go to Management Tools > File Manager. In the File Manager, navigate to etc > httpd > conf and click on the httpd.conf file to highlight it. Then click on Edit in the upper right corner of the screen.

This opens the Edit file screen, showing the httpd.conf file.

You may get an encoding error when trying to open the file. In this case, click on the drop down list for Encoding, and choose ASCII from the list, and then click OK at the prompt. This will open the file with the correct encoding.

Scroll down the file until you find the VirtualHost block for the test domain name.

Edit file - httpd.conf: original

Change the lines for ServerName and ServerAlias to have your actual domain name.

Edit file - httpd.conf: edited

Once you have made your changes, click Ok. This rewrites the httpd.conf file, but the Apache web server must be restarted for the changes to actually take effect.

To do this, go to Management Tools > Services. Click on the HTTP service to highlight it, and then click on Restart in the upper right corner of the screen. You will need to confirm that you want to restart the service. Once you do that, the service will restart.

Navigate back to Domains > WWW domains. You should see that the Name of your WWW domain is now your actual domain name. Be aware that the DocumentRoot has not changed, so you will still need to manage your files in the same location.

Command line

To make this change from the command line, you will need to connect to the Virtual Server as the root user using SSH. You will also need to know how to edit files in a text editor (vim and nano are available), and navigate the Linux file system.

Once you connect to the VS, change directories to /etc/httpd/conf, and edit the httpd.conf file.

[root@example ~]# cd /etc/httpd/conf
[root@example conf]# ll
total 108
-rw-r----- 1 root root 34250 Dec 16 13:47 httpd.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12958 Nov 7 19:43 magic
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Nov 7 19:43 ssl.crl
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Nov 15 17:50 ssl.crt
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Nov 7 19:43 ssl.csr
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Nov 15 17:50 ssl.key
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Nov 7 19:43 ssl.prm
[root@example conf]# vim httpd.conf

Find the VirtualHost block for the test site. The VirtualHost blocks start around line 205, but yours may start higher or lower.

<VirtualHost 68.169.49.8:80>
        ServerName eapps-example.vm-host.net
        DocumentRoot /var/www/test_user/data/www/eapps-example.vm-host.net
        SuexecUserGroup test_user test_user
        CustomLog /var/www/httpd-logs/eapps-example.vm-host.net.access.log combined
        ErrorLog /var/www/httpd-logs/eapps-example.vm-host.net.error.log
        ServerAlias www.eapps-example.vm-host.net
        ServerAdmin test_user@eapps-example.com
</VirtualHost>

Change the lines for ServerName and ServerAlias to your actual domain name.

<VirtualHost 68.169.49.8:80>
        ServerName eapps-example.com
        DocumentRoot /var/www/test_user/data/www/eapps-example.vm-host.net
        SuexecUserGroup test_user test_user
        CustomLog /var/www/httpd-logs/eapps-example.vm-host.net.access.log combined
        ErrorLog /var/www/httpd-logs/eapps-example.vm-host.net.error.log
        ServerAlias www.eapps-example.com
        ServerAdmin test_user@eapps-example.com
</VirtualHost>

Once you have made your changes, save and exit the file. Then restart the Apache web server so that the changes are read.

[root@eapps-example conf]# service httpd restart
Stopping httpd: [ OK ]
Starting httpd: [ OK ]
[root@eapps-example conf]#

If you log into ISPmanager and navigate to Domains > WWW domains, you should see that the Name of your WWW domain is now your actual domain name. Be aware that the DocumentRoot has not changed, so you will still need to manage your files in the same location.

Final Steps

Remember to update Billing when your migration is complete - this will keep you from being double-billed for your VPS subscription and your Virtual Server subscription.

If you have any questions or need further assistance with the migration, please contact eApps Support.

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Migrating to a Virtual Cloud Server (ISPmanager Control Panel)

Migrating to a Virtual Cloud Server Hosting Plan (ISPmanager Control Panel)

Overview

Accessing your new Virtual Server

Installing applications on the Virtual Server

Creating test domains for your web sites

Adding test sites to your Virtual Server

Moving SSL Certificates to the Virtual Server

SSL file locations - VPS

SSL files - VPS Control Panel

SSL files - VPS command line

SSL Certificate installation - Virtual Server with ISPmanager

SSL Certificate installation - ISPmanager

Moving files to the Virtual Server

Setting up your e-mail addresses on your Virtual Server

Adding an E-Mail domain

Creating mailboxes

Creating mailboxes (e-mail addresses) as the root user

Creating mailboxes (e-mail addresses) as the E-mail domain owner

Add mailbox

Final cutover - Moving Files and Domains to your Virtual Server

Move current copies of your files and data to the new Virtual Server (if necessary)

Add your actual domains to the DNS Manager and inform eApps Support

Final cutover - Moving your Mail Files to your Virtual Server

Moving mail files to the Virtual Server - overview

Mail file locations on the VPS

Moving the mail files from the VPS to the Virtual Server

Installing the tools need to convert the mailboxes

Creating the correct folders (directories) for the mail users

Converting the mail files to the correct format

Converting the INBOX

Converting any folders for the user

Add the sites to new Virtual Server, using a ServerAlias or by changing the ServerName

Adding your domains as Aliases

Changing the ServerName and ServerAlias

ISPmanager

Command line

Final Steps

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