RE: [cobalt-users] Migrating from a RaQ3 to a RaQ4i

["Veerasit Rangsichainiran" <veerasit@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Since the Frontpage extensions is different, do you have any problem to migrate the website with MsFrontpage installed from Raq3 to Raq4 ?

Teddy

-----Original Message-----
From: cobalt-users-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cobalt-users-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Carrie Bartkowiak
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2001 3:36 AM
To: cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [cobalt-users] Migrating from a RaQ3 to a RaQ4i


> OK, today I will be migrating from a RaQ3 to a RaQ4i, but my ISP says
> that they can't set up the RaQ4i with the same IP address for DNS as my
> RaQ3.

I don't see why not, an IP is an IP, no matter what machine it's on. Then
again I'm not the DNS expert. There's lots of 'em on here though so wait for
their input on that.

> Also, any suggestions on making this migration as smooth as possible? I
> have 165 sites on my RaQ3.

Ouch.
Well, one thing I can tell you is that the RaQ4's GUI has a lot more bells
and whistles than the RaQ3's GUI. Do NOT use the migration tool that Cobalt
provides - it jumbles sites up (giving them different [/site36/] site
numbers and such that can totally screw CGI programs that are hard-coded.
I've just seen too much trouble coming from that migration tool.

I had fantastic success doing things by hand. Granted, I gave myself much
more than one day to do it and I didn't have anywhere near 165 sites to
move. But here's how I did it:
After installing MySQL, doing the updates to the new machine that I wanted
done, and setting the various tweaks I prefer in httpd.conf, srm.conf,
access.conf, and php.ini etc., I was ready to load the sites onto the new
machine.

First I made a list of each site's name and number, just copied the listing
from /home/sites.
(For example, www.bluewidgets.com --> site1, www.yellowbirdies.com -->
site2, etc.

I then added the sites to the new server through the GUI *IN THE ORDER THAT
THEY APPEARED* on the original server. So I did the site that was listed as
'site1' (/home/sites/site1), then the site that was listed as 'site2', etc.
(For example, I added bluewidgets.com first. Then I added yellowbirdies.com,
and so on.)
I also added an alias for the domain in the new server's 'Web Alias' field
(that's something new you'll see on the RaQ4) so that the owners of the
sites could get in and see their sites and check them out before my Name
Servers switched to the new machine (I had to switch NS IPs as well). So
like for bluewidgets.com I'd add an alias of
bluewidgets.allaboutchoice.com.

Then I had two browsers open: one on the old server's GUI and one on the new
server's GUI. I went through the old server site by site in the GUI and made
users for each of the sites on the new box. If I didn't know their
passwords, I just gave them a generic password.
This is VERY important!! You've got to have the users for the sites set up
*before* untarring the site from the old box. If you don't, you'll end up
with someone else owning all of the files for that site rather than the
person that is supposed to.
(So if site1, bluewidgets.com, had users of larry, curly, and moe on the old
server; what I'd do is go into bluewidgets.com on the new server and make
three users: larry, curly, and moe. I'd also put in any settings they had,
like forwarding, vacation messages, aliases, etc.)

Okay. The new server is set up with the tweaks I want, the sites and the
users. Time to move the sites.
On the old server, I went into /home/sites and tarred up each site
individually.
(tar -c --verbose --file="site1.tar" site1.tar)
Then I chowned the tarball to admin (chown admin site1.tar), and downloaded
it via FTP. - I've since been told it would've been easier to simply wget
the files through telnet from the new box, so if you know how to do that, go
for it.

Then I uploaded the tarballs to /home/tmp on the new server.
As each one finished uploading (I had tons of them downloading/uploading at
the same time, my cable company must've thought I'd started a warez
depository), through telnet as root I'd copy the tarball over into the new
server's /home/sites directory and untar it.
(in /home/sites as root)
cp /home/tmp/site1.tar site1.tar
tar -xvf site1.tar

When each one was finished I'd hop into the directory and check everything
out, especially making sure that the ownerships were correct and someone
from site2 didn't have the siteadmin from site1 owning everything (which
would've meant that I had missed adding the site2 admin in the GUI...).

Now all of the tweaks are done, the sites are added in the same order they
appear on the original box, all of the users are present and accounted for,
and all of the sites' contents have been transferred onto the new box. Now
for the users' passwords.

Very quickly as root on the old box I chowned the -shadow file to admin and
sucked it down through ftp, and immediately chowned it back to root. I did
the same thing with the new machine's -shadow file.
I made double backup copies of both files.
Then in a text editor I opened both shadow files and copied each password
for each user from the old file to the new file. Just the password, nothing
else.
Again, very quickly, I chowned the -shadow file on the new machine to admin
and uploaded the new & improved -shadow file from my home machine to the new
server, and immediately chowned it back to root.  I did a couple of tests
through ftp and http to check that the passwords for working for those users
where I knew their password.
Note: this is a VERY dangerous way to do this. I did it lightning fast
through cable modem, I would not recommend doing it on a dial-up connection
even if no one in the world but you knows about your new server. There's got
to be a better way of doing this. Perhaps just uploading the file to
/home/sites/home/admin and then as root, copying it over the
existing -shadow file?

After that it was just a simple matter of creating the mysql databases and
uploading the files I had dumped from the old server; gathering little files
from here and there on the old machine and putting them in place on the new
machine, etc.

There were various restarts to httpd here and there throughout the process,
and like I said, I gave myself a LOT of time to do this so that I could make
sure everything was okay each step along the way. Multiple days, not just
one.
One thing I did do is change the IPs for my nameservers the day I started,
figuring it would take at least 2 days for ISPs to start responding to the
updated records. Big no-no. I should've waited until everything was moved.
People started responding to the new server before I was finished moving the
sites, and I had to rush the last ten sites or so. If I ever (god forbid)
have to do this again, I'm waiting until I'm finished moving the sites and
THEN I'll update my name servers.

After that I just emailed my clients with their new IP addies and the web
alias I had given them (like bluewidgets.allaboutchoice.com), and asked them
to go in and check everything over. I let them know that if they had any
scripts that had IP addies in them rather than URLs they'd need to update
those to their new IP addies (for the ones with dedicated IPs, anyway) - I
had already corrected the ones I knew about and offered to correct the rest
if they wanted me to. I also gave them detailed directions on how to get
their mail from the new server and the old server, how to do a tracert to
see which one they were connecting to, etc.

I know that this is a long, involved, extremely PAINFUL way to migrate
sites, but I wanted to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible.
I think it did go pretty smoothly. I hope and pray I don't ever have to do
it again, but I'm glad I did it this way because the ride for my clients
wasn't too bumpy at all. (One or two of my clients are on this list, matter
of fact, so they can speak up and mention any bumps if they want to.)

Good luck, may the force be with you, be patient, drink lots of caffeinated
beverages, double- and triple-check everything, and above all, offer to fix
anything that you might have forgotten about or broken. Remember it's not
the clients faults that things have to be moved, so they should'nt be the
ones to have to pay for it by having broken stuff in their sites (or having
to download/upload everything themselves).

Umm... go forth and prosper?  :)

Carrie Bartkowiak - who still hasn't put her home directory back online
after the move, redoing the site first!

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