HELP! Changing vBulletin Hosts...

Okay, I've had it with A Small Orange (hell, they even use Invision Board )... anyone know what the steps are to migrate a board from one site to the next?

I am assuming I can go into cpanel and make a full back up, download it, upload it, and restore.

That part sounds easy.

BUT... do i have to worry about paths?

On ASO I might be:

/home/account_name1/public_html/

But on a new server I might be:

/home/account_name2/public_html

I see an issue with all the config files in vBSEO, Photoplog, vBulletin...

Any insight?

PS, I love their "only down for 15 minutes"... some hosts strive for 99.9% uptime, ASO is happy with just 15 minutes downtime!

well, I'm getting ready to buy a VPS with Fluid Hosting: FreeBSD and Windows Hosting

and yes, if u make a full backup with cPanel, you can just upload to the new server.. and your right, all you'll need to do is change the DB name info in a few places.. vbseo shouldn't have any problems that I see.. photoplog will have one edit in the config file for the path, same wth vba if your using that.. vbulletin shouldn't unless you've added the full patch in config,,, just the db name is all you'll haev to edit.. shouldn't be more then 3 or 4 places with those hacks

Dont depend on the cPanel backup at all, espcecially if you have a semi-large site of 50MB or more.

Ask ASO to enable SSH for your account, simply login via ssh and issue some commands

Code:

mysqldump -u mysql_username -p -h localhost mysql_datbasename > mysql_databasename.sql

You'll then be asked for your database password, enter it and you'll have your basic DB backup. I reccommend doing 2-3 to be safe.

Next

Code:

tar -cvf sitename.tar /home/sitename/

This should backup your entire directory on the ASO account, and get it ready for a nice easy move.

Those steps will give you a awesome backup, sure it takes another second or two but its never failed for me. Next get that .tar file onto your new server, you can download it, then upload it or move that file into your public_html folder for a moment.

New Server Time (SSH prompt)
Enter your old sites ip address

Code:

wget ip.ad.dres.ss/sitename.tar

That will download your site backup, alot faster then you'll be able to download backup and restore. Next unpack it

Code:

tar xvf sitename.tar

That should place everything back exactly where it should be. Last thing to do is recreate the DB. log back into your sites control panel on the new server, create the same database name, username, and password.

Issue this command from SSH

Code:

mysql -u username -p -h localhost mysql_databasename < mysql_databasename.sql

You'll be asked to enter your password.

Bam everything done, assuming all paths are the same. This looks long and complicated, but its really only about 6 commands and alot faster then downloading reuploading, unpacking via cPanel, and running the risk of incomplete downloads, or uploads.

If you need help, let me know I dont mind helping people out for free

Good luck
-Dave

if both servers have control panel, and your new server has WHM enabled, and you have root access to the old server, you can move a whole site in just a few clicks.

I've been with softlayer.com for about a month now and have nothing but good to say of them.

Softlayer does rock, Been there since they've been open pretty much. They totally rock

Originally Posted by briansol

if both servers have control panel, and your new server has WHM enabled, and you have root access to the old server, you can move a whole site in just a few clicks.

Okay, last night I downloaded a full backup from ASO (through cpanel). I went to the cpanel of a new site I set up on a VPS and tried to reinstall it through cpanel and it seems to have uncompressed into the wrong directory (I think it is parallel to public_html).

I didn't do it through WHM.

Is that the problem? How do I do it there?

I have a VPS named "host.domain1.com" and the other site is an account under that VPS.

Fightrice, I think you know what you are talking about but you are talking quantum physics to a guy who has only progressed as far as "fire bad, food good."

To add to the above post, I see in my WHM that I can transfer a site from WHM to WHM (though I don't know how) but one of my other sites is just a shared site on cpanel and I don't have access to WHM. I just have a cpanel full backup.

Frankly, help for either senario would be helpful.

No problem. Delete your public_html folder that is empty and there now, then simply rename the other folder to public_html

In my expereince with cPAnel backups, it creates some wacky structure, and your old public_html folder should be in like a home folder or something weird like that . Like i said, if you need some help just let me know, and i'll fix it all up for you in no time

Okay, I did it! I'm rid of A Small Orange!

They went down again yesterday and the day before.

Server loads were averaging 0.75 or so. Now they are 0.0! Weee!

I discovered my problem with cpanel backups. You have to reinstall them through WHM, not cpanel. And you can't have created the account you wish to restore prior to restoring. (When you restore the file it creates the account for you).

You have to upload the backup file to the root's "home" directory using SSH. I coudn't figure out the DOS-like commands so I downloaded a GUI named WinSCP... WinSCP :: Freeware SFTP and SCP client for Windows

If you restore through cpanel (and then renanaming the public_html) it doesn't recreate the databases.

Are you dedicated or shared? Where are you moving?

I moved to a VBS. I did so to consolidate all my sites.

A dedicated server is x2 the price and not managed. I understand html and css but managing servers are not something I want to learn at this time in my life.