Migrate Plesk to a new Physical Server?

[mevans]

Hello all,

We have decided to upgrade our main shared hosting server to a more powerful one and use our old server for free, Non-Profit sites.

We would like to move our Plesk installation to the new server, along with all the sites and then manually put the free sites back onto the old server.

1) Will it be an issue with the Plesk license to just re-install Plesk on the new server and use our old license?

2) I know Plesk has a backup utility. Can I just backup all the domains and then restore them onto the new server?

3) Can anyone think of any "gotchas" that I may run across?

Thanks!

 

[Paladin]

Hello

1) You can use the same key for all Plesk which have 7.5.x versions, but this key will not work at Plesk 7.0.x. etc.
Also It's impossible to use the same key at the two different servers.

2) Yes, this is the best decision

3) All should be fine

 

[mevans]

Originally posted by Paladin
Hello

1) You can use the same key for all Plesk which have 7.5.x versions, but this key will not work at Plesk 7.0.x. etc.
Also It's impossible to use the same key at the two different servers.

2) Yes, this is the best decision

3) All should be fine

Paladin,

So, you're saying I can not migrate my license and server while my old server is running, because I can not use the same Plesk license on two different servers?

Thanks for the confirmation on the other 2 issues!

 

[Paladin]

Yes, you shouldn't install your key at new server, while your old Plesk server will be working and using this key

Just stop old Plesk before you will start to restore your data at new server.

 

[mevans]

Originally posted by Paladin
Yes, you shouldn't install your key at new server, while your old Plesk server will be working and using this key

Just stop old Plesk before you will start to restore your data at new server.

Ack!

We can't do that. That would mean our clients will be down during the migration.

That is unacceptable.

We want to migrate each site slowly....

Paladin, if we do not exceed our licensed limit, can this be done?

I refuse to buy another licensed copy of Plesk for a week or so, just so I can migrate my clients with no downtime.

That makes no sense!

 

[Paladin]

Then write a letter to [email protected] and ask them about trial key.

 

[mevans]

Originally posted by Paladin
Then write a letter to [email protected] and ask them about trial key.

Will do.

Thanks for the quick responses Paladin!

 

[Paladin]

no problems

 

[Redah]

Bullsh*t, you can install the Plesk license on different servers easily, they are not bound to an IP.

We have done it many times (with both Linux and Windows), and it works perfectly. Yes, Plesk phones home, but SW-Soft doesn't really seem to mind if the licenses are on the same name (so you have to enter the same organisation name in plesk...).

If you change the name however (so you would be sharing the license with someone else), the other person will get an e-mail saying he is illegally using the plesk key. That happened to me when I moved from ev1servers to my own server, and the plesk backup restored the ev1 key.

But rest assured, you can use the license on both servers without problems, but after you are done migrating, ofcourse you have to get an additional license for that server, to keep things legal. You are not allowed to run the license on two different servers. But for migrating, you can use the old license temporarily.

On the other things (backup/restore) I have to agree, that would be the best way

 

[Redah]

I really wonder why someone saying he's "Technical Support Engineer" from "SWsoft, Inc." would say that the license simply cannot work...

Ofcourse it works, you know that just as well as I do. Mevans, just use the old Plesk key for a week, you don't have to wait for SWSoft to send you a trial key. If you use your old Plesk key, you have all the same abilities (e.g. Tomcat and such) on the new server as on the old server... thus allowing you to test everything you need to test

Also, about the "gotchas"... if you have edited your php/mysql configuration files, make sure to restore those on the new server as well, it can save you many headaches when something doesn't seem to work (and after 6 hours you find out it's a simple php.ini setting you missed...)

 

[JackL]

Originally posted by Redah
I really wonder why someone saying he's "Technical Support Engineer" from "SWsoft, Inc." would say that the license simply cannot work...

Ofcourse it works, you know that just as well as I do. Mevans, just use the old Plesk key for a week, you don't have to wait for SWSoft to send you a trial key. If you use your old Plesk key, you have all the same abilities (e.g. Tomcat and such) on the new server as on the old server... thus allowing you to test everything you need to test

Also, about the "gotchas"... if you have edited your php/mysql configuration files, make sure to restore those on the new server as well, it can save you many headaches when something doesn't seem to work (and after 6 hours you find out it's a simple php.ini setting you missed...)

Redah

In any case it will be better idea to contact SWsoft about temporary key usage on two servers. They decide either send you a temporary key or allow for limited time to use key on both servers. If one doesn't follow "best practice" - his key can be "red flagged" during key update. In this situation you also have to apply to SWsoft, but from the "other side' of law

John S.G.

 

[mevans]

As my my previous posting a couple of nights ago, Sw Soft sent a temporary 14 day key to use during the migration.

They sent it within 10 minutes or so of my email request.

Pretty killer service if you ask me.

Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[JackL]

Originally posted by mevans
As my my previous posting a couple of nights ago, Sw Soft sent a temporary 14 day key to use during the migration.

They sent it within 10 minutes or so of my email request.

Pretty killer service if you ask me.

Thanks for the help everyone!

Good job!
Well done!

John S.G.

 

[Jllynch]

So how did you get on with the move. We are looking for a solution to this also. What did you do about renaming your old server name(how can this be done)? Also what about DNS? All your old sites will probably be in the records of the DNS on the new server won't they (unless you use all external DNS).

Or did you just resetup plesk from scratch on your old server with new names and its own DNS?

We moved all sites with migration manager to a new server and kept some old one on the old server. Now we just have to sort out the two machines having the same DNS records etc.

Australian Hosting

 

[mevans]

The old server wasn't going to run Plesk any longer, so duplicate server names wasn't an issue.

I simply reinstalled Plesk and all the associated software on the new server, ran Plesk Backup on the old server, uploaded the backup file to the new server, restored the domains, verified their functionality, then updated the GoDaddy DNS records for each domain.

Worked like a charm!

 

[Gris@]

Jllynch
When you restore Plesk's backup you can restore websites on another IPs.

 

[Jllynch]

yeah we ended up doing that in the end. What I am particularly interested in is solutions for sharing the DNS between two server so they back each other up. Any ideas?