Switching from Windows to Linux

[themidge]

Hello!

I have a Windows 2012 server running the latest version of Plesk with just a couple of domains and email accounts. Nothing too major. I am considering switching to Linux for two reasons. The first being that a Linux installation with Plesk now supports the Let's Encrypt plugin. It's an incredible project and I'm not sure how long it will be until Plesk for Windows supports it.

The second reason, the free version of MailEnable doesn't support encryption. Being a non-business user, I don't want to pay $400 for an encrypted mail server just to host a couple of email accounts. So I either need to live without an encrypted email server or switch to a free version that does.

I understand that the migration tool is not for migrating between different operating systems.

Is it possible to take a backup of the webspace on the windows server and restore it to the linux server?

Whatever the answer to the question above, are there any other special considerations I should make when carrying out the switch? While not ideal, I would be willing to do a completely manual migration due to the limited number of sites and email accounts.

Any pointers would be appreciated!

 

[scsa20]

I've done a migration from Windows to Linux and sadly there's no easy way of doing it. You would need to manually recreate the domains on the new server and transfer all the files back up and re-import the databases. Depending on how many sites you have and the size it could be very quick or could take awhile.

What I did was, since I've ordered a new VPS that's running Linux, I RDP to my server after creating the domains and FTP settings and started copying the files over which was a lot faster then downloading the files to my computer then reuploading it (even more so since they're in the same hosting infrastructure). I also exported out the databases and copy it over via ftp to the directory before the htdocs so I can tell Plesk to import the database from that file.

I also updated my computer's HOSTS file so when I go to my domain it goes to the new IP address instead of the old so I can test and make sure everything was working. Once everything tested fine I switched the IP address around in my name servers of where my domain is parked (since I'm using custom name servers) and waited until I know for sure all traffic was flowing to the new IP address instead of the old, then I killed the IIS service and let the host cancel that server.

In terms of email, I wasn't using MailEnable for anything so there was no email stored (just used it for sending out emails with PHP scripts) so for migrating the emails your best bet is to search online to see if it's possible. Easiest would be to just POP the emails to download all the emails to your local computer but that's just me.

Basically just need some basic planning and you should be able to migrate everything over. Hope this helps a bit.

 

[themidge]

Thanks very much for the pointers, I really appreciate it. I'll start planning on a fully manual migration. Not sure when I'll do it but I'll pop back on when I'm done to let you know how it went.

 

[themidge]

Thanks to the recent work that's gone into Plesk for Windows, it now supports Let's Encrypt which is working well, very pleased with it. I've just found out that the latest version of MailEnable Standard also supports SSL! I'm very very pleased about this and no now longer need to switch to Linux (at least for the short term!). Now I just need to work out how to secure MailEnable!