Plesk 8 to Plesk 10 Migration

[MarkM]

Hello,

I have an existing server running Plesk 8 that I need to do a full migration over to a Plesk 10 server. What would be the suggested route to take on this?

 

[Faris Raouf]

I've just done one. It was delightfully easy.

There are a number of ways to do it, but arguably the easiest would be as follows:

1) Set up your new server the way you want it.

2) Ideally back it up at this point, in such a way that you can wipe it and restore it to this point.

3) Do a test migration to the new server. That it, just use migration manager to migrate everything you would want to migrate. Make sure it completes OK. Check the error log afterwards. You will almost certainly see errors, but 99 times out of 100 they are of no consequence.

4) Set up the nifty new site preview feature in Plesk 10 so that you can properly check some migrated websites, especially those running php.

5) Check error logs.

6) Investigate the option you'll see in the Tools section regarding completing the transition of migrated accounts to the new business model (I'm sorry -- I don't remember the exact name of the option, but you'll see it highlighted after a migration. Dealing with this and understanding how it works is important

7) If you were able to do item 2, wipe and restore. If not, delete all customers (their domains go with them).

8) When you are ready to do the real migration, firewall your plesk 8 server to close down everything except access from your new server and your remote IP

9) Do the migration again.

10) Do another quick check to make sure all appears OK

11) Shut down Plesk 8 server

12) Change IPs on Plesk 10 server to match those on Plesk 8 server. Do this on the system itself, and use the reconfigurator utility to remap the IPs within Plesk.

13) Change hostname if need be.

14) Reboot it need be.

15) Check again to make sure all is well.

To be honest the devil is in the detail. Will your new server have a different version of PHP and MySQL? If yes, then you may need to warn your customers that they need to check script compatibility etc.

php.ini needs to be correctly configured - by default newer versions report all sorts of errors that will fill your logs and potentially slow down your system. Memory limits and so on are different.

my.cnf needs to be adjusted to meet your needs too.

You really need to get comfortable with Plesk 10, and especially the "new business model" (subscriptions) and the way you transition migrated accounts to use subscriptions.

Faris.