Server migration - restoring admin_backups - should I restore main admin account?

[Roberto]

Hello

I am migrating to a new VPS now. On my existing server, there was only one admin account and no resellers. I used the admin level admin_backup to save the existing accounts offline whilst moving.

I used FTP to transfer the admin_backup folder to the new VPS. I have restored accounts this way in the past. What I can't remember is if it is OK to restore the admin user account itself, since it is the DirectAdmin main account. Will restoring this cause any issues when overwriting any data on the new server? I only need it to restore the reseller packages onto the new server. I don't need any other data from the old admin, and worried if I restore its user then it might cause issues? Is it OK to go ahead and restore the admin user prior to restoring the rest of the users?

Note, it has the same username I chose before, which is not "admin". I set it to something else in setup.sh when installing DA on the new server, so it can't easily be guessed.

 

[Richard G]

Will restoring this cause any issues when overwriting any data on the new server?

If you didn't use the old admin account, there is no need to restore it. I think the restoration of reseller packages is still not fixed anyway.

However, if you do restore the new admn account with the old admin account, that should not give any trouble, but you will have to use your old password to login. And you have to double check if everything is still oke (nameservers, etc.).
But it should not cause any issues. We always restored that way on new servers.

On restore, you should -always- go from top to bottom, so if you want to restore admin, then first admin, then resellers and then users.
If you keep the new admin account, then start restoring resellers and then users.

As for the note, you can also rename your new admin account to some other name before restoring users if needed. But if it's now already not "admin" anymore, and the account wasn't used, I still wonder as to why you want to restore the old account.

 

[Roberto]

If you didn't use the old admin account, there is no need to restore it. I think the restoration of reseller packages is still not fixed anyway.

However, if you do restore the new admn account with the old admin account, that should not give any trouble, but you will have to use your old password to login. And you have to double check if everything is still oke (nameservers, etc.).
But it should not cause any issues. We always restored that way on new servers.

On restore, you should -always- go from top to bottom, so if you want to restore admin, then first admin, then resellers and then users.
If you keep the new admin account, then start restoring resellers and then users.

As for the note, you can also rename your new admin account to some other name before restoring users if needed. But if it's now already not "admin" anymore, and the account wasn't used, I still wonder as to why you want to restore the old account.

Thanks @Richard G

You're quite right, I don't need the old admin account. I now recall restoring it in the past and id did something more than just affecting the password, so will avoid it.

I found some old notes I made in 2018 about restoring the packages from this location:

/usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/packages/
/usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/packages.list
/usr/local/directadmin/data/users/admin/packages/
/usr/local/directadmin/data/users/admin/packages.list

I'll give that a go. Had forgotten about that.

Many thanks!

 

[Roberto]

Great! restoring packages.list to the above locations worked! I can see the old packages on the new server now.

 

[Richard G]

Great, indeed that way you can restore the packages then also.

However, this still is a bug needing to be fixed in DA.