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Burgl@r

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May 16, 2006
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5
Hello,

I'am new to DA and wonder if its is posible to convert a huge Plesk server (300+ accounts) to DA without doing anything by hand, or not al by hand.

I know there is an converter for cPanel but not for Plesk.

Does anybody know how to do it, so we can fast over form the Plesk to the DA server.

Great thanks sofar
 
Last edited:
I'd love one as well, but the plesk backup file appears to be proprietary, and monolithic.

If you have the specifications for the Plesk backup file, that would be the place to start.

Jeff
 
To migrate an account from Plesk is a hell of a job.

There are some major problems:

1. The Plesk backup format is custom, and no information is available on the format. This leaves manual backup.

2. The maximum username length on Plesk is longer than with DA

3. Database users on Plesk can be any username, while on DA they are a combination of the username and a database username.

4. Plesk uses Qmail while DA uses Exim. These unfortunately are not compatible.

As all usernames and database (user)names need to be changed for DA, full automatic conversion is impossible unless you drop some characters from usernames and replace it by a nummeric counter.


In short, you need to:

- Create each user manually
- Create the subdomains manually in DA
- Create the email pops and forwarders in DA
- Copy the user web files from htdocs to the public_html folder for the user on DA. Do not forget to copy the hidden files too! Else you will end up without .htaccess files.
- Subdomains in Plesk are one folder up in the subdomains folder, DA stores them as a sub-directory in public_html
- Create copies from your databases either by using phpMyAdmin or mysqldump and restore them with phpMyAdmin or mysql on the therminal (a must if the files are big)

Depending on the sizes of the accounts, it will take you 10 to 15 minutes per account
 
You make some good points; I'll add a few as well:
FransVanNispen said:
1. The Plesk backup format is custom, and no information is available on the format. This leaves manual backup.
As I wrote in my post directly above.
2. The maximum username length on Plesk is longer than with DA
What is the maximum username length with Plesk? I believe it's 10 in DA. There's actually a reason for that.
3. Database users on Plesk can be any username, while on DA they are a combination of the username and a database username.
Which is why there's a limit to the DA username, so the combined name won't be too long. DA does it this way so you and the system can easily determine which databases belong to which user. While you can manually create a database (and then restore it manually) for any user with any name we've never done it and don't recommend it (among other things its space won't be counted for the user).
4. Plesk uses Qmail while DA uses Exim. These unfortunately are not compatible.
I can always rewrite that to say that Plesk uses an antiquated email program which hasn't been worked on by the author since 1999, and which they've appropriated for themselves, and modified outside the license, while DirectAdmin uses an up-to-date mail system that's kept up-to-date and supported by a dynamic friendly community. (I find the qmail community to be very arrogant, but that's just my opinion.)

Nevertheless, instead I'll say that by default DirectAdmin still installs with mbox support while qmail uses Maildir (invented by the author of qmail). However DirectAdmin does support Maildir; you have to install it yourself. If you've already set up mail users you can convert them to Maildir. Search for Dovecot in these forums for instructions and other information.
As all usernames and database (user)names need to be changed for DA, full automatic conversion is impossible unless you drop some characters from usernames and replace it by a nummeric counter.
Definitely true.
In short, you need to:

- Create each user manually
- Create the subdomains manually in DA
- Create the email pops and forwarders in DA
- Copy the user web files from htdocs to the public_html folder for the user on DA. Do not forget to copy the hidden files too! Else you will end up without .htaccess files.
You can make this a bit easier this way:

On your Plesk system, from the directory above the htdocs directory tar up the entire htdocs directory:
Code:
 tar -czvf <domain-name>.htdocs.tar.gz htdocs/
Then move the directory over to the DA server.

There, from the /home/<uswername>/domains/<domain-name> directory:
Code:
# tar -xzvf /path/to/domain-name>.htdocs.tar.gz
rm -Rf public_html/
mv htdocs public_html
chmod 755 public_html
chown <username>:<username> public_html
You may have to change some usernames/groupnames and permissions inside the directory as well.
Subdomains in Plesk are one folder up in the subdomains folder, DA stores them as a sub-directory in public_html
Yes, so you'll have to move them similarly to as noted above.
- Create copies from your databases either by using phpMyAdmin or mysqldump and restore them with phpMyAdmin or mysql on the therminal (a must if the files are big)
And don't forget to change the usernames in the configuration files for the programs calling the databases.

I think you may have forgotten some other issues:

The ssl-protected directories; they have to be managed similarly to as stated above for the non-protected directories in public_html, but put instead into the (in my opinion misnamed) private_html.

On Plesk servers the cgi-bin is at the same level as the htdocs directory; you'll have to move it inside the public_html directory, where DA expects to find it.

Of course if you want to move the mail you can do that after you convert your DA server to use MailDir.

And another thing we do when we convert:

We create a text file in the public_html directory called whichserver.txt, which includes the hostname of the new server.

We create DNS pointing to the old server IP#, even on the new server's nameserver, but we create a new A record called new.<domain.name> which points to the new server, on both old and new nameservers. We test thoroughly on the new server and only when completely satisfied switch over to the new nameservers and change the A records to point back to the new server.
Depending on the sizes of the accounts, it will take you 10 to 15 minutes per account
That's our experience as well, even working quickly, and we have years of experience with both Plesk and DA (we were formerly Plesk Gold Partners).

In fact we're in the midst of closing the purchase of a hosting company using Plesk, and we're going to leave them hosted on Plesk for at least a month; maybe longer.

Jeff
 
You make some good points; I'll add a few as well:
There, from the /home/<uswername>/domains/<domain-name> directory:
Code:
# tar -xzvf /path/to/domain-name>.htdocs.tar.gz
rm -Rf public_html/
mv htdocs public_html
chmod 755 public_html
chown <username>:<username> public_html
You may have to change some usernames/groupnames and permissions inside the directory as well.

Jeff

to avoid security leak, public_html permision is 750 with owner username:apache
Code:
mv htdocs public_html
chmod 750 public_html
chown -R <username>:apache public_html
 
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