Re: [cobalt-users] How to Migrate from A Raq4

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris Saunders wrote:

> I was wondering if anyone still on the list has ever migrated FROM a cobalt
> to another system, and what help or insight they could provide.

We've got lots of experience going in both directions.

There are some niggling details, and if you're going to use "straight"
Linux you've got to set up all the users.  We set up a group for each
site, similarly to the way it's done on RaQs.  We set up one user in
that group to manage the domain, for example:

If the domain is www.flybynight.com we'll have a user "flybynight". 
That user will get rights to a directory called /home/flybynight; we'll
set up /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf to point www.flybynight.com (and
usually flybynight.com as well) to a virtual site with the home
directory /home/flybynight/web (O'Reilly books tend to recommend a path
such as /usr/www/www.flybynight.com/htdocs, but we think that's
needlessly complex, and we like to see all users, including the
"website" user, under /home).

We don't offer site users their own webspace by default.

We don't use cgi-wrapper by default; it was originally created for
users, not for websites; instead we set up a cgi-bin directory OUTSIDE
the web path, for example, at /home/flybynight/cgi-bin.

There are lots more details to learn.  For a start you might want to buy
a good Apache book; I like "Linux Apache Web Server Administration" from
Sybex, and "Apache The definitive Guide" from O'Reilly.

And you might want to download the open-source "adduser" script I've
contributed to open-source; you can get it via anonymous ftp at
ftp.nobaloney.net.

If you're considering a different administration system that will make
things a bit easier for you; at the very minimum you might want to
consider webmin.

If you're going to look at Plesk they offer migration services, as do
we, as a Plesk VAR, and I and others on this list will offer migration
services to "straight" linux as well, but it can get expensive.

Planning your platform can be very important; there are so many
different ways to do things, and things can get out of control quickly. 
The first time I set up a linux server for webhosting was back in 1994;
things were a bit easier then; Linux (kernel version 0.99) only allowed
one IP# per machine, and only one URL per IP#, so everything was done
with users.  It took over a month to get things exactly the way I wanted
them.

And it took over a month a few years ago to develop a system that would
work well for a company using both Linux and RaQs.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Linux and Cobalt/Sun/RaQ Consulting
nobaloney.net
P. O. Box 52672, Riverside, CA  92517
voice: (909) 778-9980  *  fax: (702) 548-9484