Knowledge Base

cPanel Migration to Mammoth VPS

Thought i would put this up for anyone that has WHM/CPANEL hosting and might be looking to change to a VPS system.

I moved across my US based CPANEL/WHM Reseller account to Mammoth VPS in less than a few hours, using GPL Virtualmin/Webmin.

http://www.webmin.com/

Steps below!.

1. Sign up for a VPS!
   - Choose Centos 5.0
   
   
2. SSH into VPS
   
   
3. Run the following commands in order:
   

   wget http://software.virtualmin.com/gpl/scripts/install.sh
   sudo chmod +x install.sh
   sudo install.sh
   

4. Wait, after a few minutes it will be installed and you can access the virtual/webmin server @ https://yourserver:10000/
   now by default it only uses PHP 5.16 which some may not like
   
   If so run the following commands:

   sudo rpm --import http://software.virtualmin.com/lib/RPM-GPG-KEY-virtualmin
   

   (for x86)

   sudo rpm -ivh http://software.virtualmin.com/bleed/centos/5/i386/virtualmin-bleed-release-1.0-1.rhel.noarch.rpm 
   

   or (for x64)

   sudo rpm -ivh http://software.virtualmin.com/bleed/centos/5/x86_64/virtualmin-bleed-release-1.0-1.rhel.noarch.rpm
   

   sudo yum update
   

5. On the https://yourserver:10000/ goto system information click on status click on restart apache.

Apache will restart and PHP 5.2.11 will be in use.

Its recommended for compatibility to stick with what Virtualmin provides, but obviously you can mix and match at will.

Now the easiest thing is to import your websites from a Cpanel host.

Login to old cpanel host(make sure you know the password else reset the password before doing the backup), goto backups Do full backup

this will get saved to /home/server/backup.xxx

chmod this for read access, and move it to /home/server/public_html

on your Virtualmin server goto Webmin in the top left corner.

Click on "Others" on the left, click on "Upload and Download"

enter in the address to the backup file http://oldsite/backup.tar.gz etc

save it to somewhere on the hdd.

if you wish you can also download the file abit more *safely* in ssh via
wget -c http://oldsite/backup.tar.gz

Once its download to import this to your new server with pretty much everything in tack (subdomains/mailbox/ftp accounts/etc etc)

1. Back to https://yourserver:10000/ (if not already click on virtualmin) on the top left.
   
   
2. Click on "Add Servers" click on "Migrate Servers"
   
   
3. It should be set to local file already, click the [...] browse to the place where you saved the backup.tar.gz select it.
   
   
4. Password for administrator put the dot in and type the password.

Click Migrate.

Wait a few, and bam its all done, check the log data make sure everything came across, on occasions the MYSQL file wont import properly but that simple matter to import via Virtualmin interface also. You may also need to fix some folder permissions.


So in a couple of hours your fully setup and moved across to free alternative to cpanel with alot of customisable options, aswell as some good backup system built in.