How to transfer accounts between cPanel server

cPanel offers convenient tools to perform content migration. In some cases, you will only need to use a Transfer Tool and switch DNS. More complex setups require additional steps to finish the migration. In any case, we hope that this manual will make the process easier for you.

Over the course of this manual, we use both WHM and command-line to perform necessary actions (SSH credentials are provided after server purchase). WHM is user-friendly and works great for standard actions. However, some steps are either much faster to do from the command-line or not doable from the graphical interface at all.

NOTE: If not stated otherwise, commands should be run on the destination server. Bold text in commands should be replaced with your own data.

Basic steps

Extended steps

Pre-transfer

Setting up a new server

Ensure connectivity between servers

Fixing post-transfer errors

Adjusting DNS and local email/FTP clients

Basic steps

This is a simplified workflow that is likely to work if you have a recent and default cPanel setup on servers set up by Namecheap. If the source server has a recent cPanel setup and you did not tweak the server a lot, it can be sufficient.

If this does not work, you will need to check the extended version below and/or do research on your end.

1. Run this one-liner to make sure that no major issues are present.

mkdir -p /root/rpmdb_bak && cp -avr /var/lib/rpm/* /root/rpmdb_bak && rm -vf /var/lib/rpm/__db* && rpm --rebuilddb -vv && /scripts/check_cpanel_rpms --fix && /scripts/upcp --force && whmapi1 set_local_mysql_root_password password="$(openssl rand -base64 14)”

2. Whitelist source server on destination and vice versa. IPs can be found in WHM >> Basic WebHost Manager® Setup >> Basic Config or in output of ‘ifconfig’/’ip a’ commands. Whitelists can be done as explained here.

Example:

[source] # ifconfig | grep inet | head -1
inet 172.16.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 172.16.0.255
[destination] # ifconfig | grep inet | head -1
inet 172.16.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 172.16.0.255
[source] # csf -a 172.16.0.2
[destination] # csf -a 172.16.0.1

3. Start the transfer:

1. Go to WHM >> Transfer Tool;
2. Enter the IP of the source server and root password;

3. Click Scan Remote Server:

Select the accounts you want to transfer and hit Copy:

You will get a transfer session ID and cPanel will provide continuous progress updates. If the total amount of data to transfer is small (let’s say under 10G), you can wait for the transfer to complete in real-time. Otherwise, copy over the transfer session ID to a safe place and close the page. The process will continue and you will be able to get back to it anytime.

4. Once you think that the transfer is over, log into the server and review the session (if you checked before that the transfer is over and there are no errors, just disconnect and get back to it later).

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/view_transfer transfer_id_you_saved_before --overview

5. Check the sites using hosts tools.
6. Use the local hosts file as explained here.
Switch over DNS. In case you have Private nameservers set up, you will need to only update the IP of the nameservers. If the domain is registered with Namecheap, refer here.

Otherwise, find the necessary instructions on the site of your registrar. If you are using other nameservers (for example, Cloudflare), the records from the new (destination) server should be copied over to them. Keep in mind that DNS propagation may last up to 24 hours.

Extended steps

This part explains all steps in much more detail. If you have customized your server by installing extra software, you have more dated software installed, or if something didn’t work after the transfer, this part is for you.

Pre-transfer

Setting up a new server

Before doing the transfer itself, it is a good idea to make the setup as similar to the old server as possible. This way you will have less work to do after the transfer.

1. Make sure that the server is set up correctly, cPanel, and core services work.

mkdir -p /root/rpmdb_bak && cp -avr /var/lib/rpm/* /root/rpmdb_bak && rm -vf /var/lib/rpm/__db* && rpm --rebuilddb -vv && /scripts/check_cpanel_rpms --fix && /scripts/upcp --force && whmapi1 set_local_mysql_root_password password="$(openssl rand -base64 14)”

Below you can find the decryption of the command:

Part of the command	Descryption
mkdir -p /root/rpmdb_bak && cp -avr /var/lib/rpm/* /root/rpmdb_bak && rm -vf /var/lib/rpm/__db* && rpm --rebuilddb -vv	There is a minor chance that the RPM database on the server will be corrupt. In this case, several cPanel scripts (and yum) will not work. This one-liner backs up the current database and rebuilds it from scratch.
/scripts/check_cpanel_rpms --fix	This script ensures integrity and presence of packages required by cPanel
/scripts/upcp --force	Immediately update cPanel. Update ensures that various assets and packages required for normal operations of cPanel are present and up-to-date.
whmapi1 set_local_mysql_root_password password="$(openssl rand -base64 14)”	Ensure that local MySQL root password is set (generally it should be out of the box, but there are no downsides of making sure that it is true)

2. PHP version/extensions

For common packages that are supported by cPanel, you may use EasyApache. For less common packages, it is necessary to use PHP Pecl. Both are explained here.

NOTE: EasyApache4 is a wrapper around YUM package manager. If you are familiar with the latter, you can use it instead. Be careful - it does not offer the same sanity checks as WHM GUI.

3. Additional packages

Package name	Installation commands to execute via shell access
Engintron	cd / && rm -f engintron.sh && wget --no-check-certificate https://raw.githubusercontent.com/engintron/engintron/master/engintron.sh && bash engintron.sh install
Node.js NOTE: this applies to CentOS + cPanel. If you are using CloudLinux, start by reading this	yum -y install epel yum -y install ea-ruby24-mod_passenger ea-apache24-mod_env ea-nodejs10 ea-ruby24-ruby-devel Detailed steps as well as example configs are available here.
ConfigServer Firewall (csf) NOTE: we install CSF on new servers with cPanel by default, installation steps are provided mostly for your reference.	cd /usr/src; rm -fv csf.tgz; wget https://download.configserver.com/csf.tgz; tar -xzf csf.tgz; cd csf; sh install.sh # Running those is not obligatory, but otherwise csf will spam you with false-positive notifications sed -i 's/^TESTING = .$/TESTING = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^IPV6 = .$/IPV6 = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^LF_EMAIL_ALERT = .$/LF_EMAIL_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^LF_SU_EMAIL_ALERT = .$/LF_SU_EMAIL_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^LF_WEBMIN_EMAIL_ALERT = .$/LF_WEBMIN_EMAIL_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^LF_CONSOLE_EMAIL_ALERT = .$/LF_CONSOLE_EMAIL_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^PT_USERMEM = .$/PT_USERMEM = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^PT_USERRSS = .$/PT_USERRSS = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^PT_USERTIME = .$/PT_USERTIME = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^PT_USERKILL_ALERT = .$/PT_USERKILL_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^LF_PERMBLOCK_ALERT = .$/LF_PERMBLOCK_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^LF_NETBLOCK_ALERT = .$/LF_NETBLOCK_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^LT_EMAIL_ALERT = .$/LT_EMAIL_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^RT_RELAY_ALERT = .$/RT_RELAY_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^RT_AUTHRELAY_ALERT = .$/RT_AUTHRELAY_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^RT_POPRELAY_ALERT = .$/RT_POPRELAY_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^RT_LOCALHOSTRELAY_ALERT = .$/RT_LOCALHOSTRELAY_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf sed -i 's/^CT_EMAIL_ALERT = .$/CT_EMAIL_ALERT = "0"/' /etc/csf/csf.conf
Softaculous	whmapi1 set_tweaksetting key=phploader value=ioncube & /usr/local/cpanel/whostmgr/bin/whostmgr2 --updatetweaksettings; wget -N https://files.softaculous.com/install.sh; chmod 755 install.sh; ./install.sh

If you have installed anything beyond this list, refer to the up-to-date instructions for that software.

Ensure connectivity between servers

If you have not tweaked/secured your installation, the transfer can be done by using the default ssh port (22) using the root password and source server IP.

If you did secure your server, the easiest way to proceed is to lift wall restrictions and revert to basic settings during the transfer. If you do not want to do that, the following may be useful:

Security feature	How to make transfer work when the feature is enabled
SSH password auth is disabled	Use SSH key for transfer instead.
Root auth is disabled	Use a user with necessary sudo rights in the transfer tool. The steps on how it should be set up can be found in this article.
SSH logins are only allowed from specific IPs	Add destination server to /etc/hosts.allow on the source server (or use Host Access Control WHM menu)
Non-standard SSH port	Make sure that outgoing connections via that given port are allowed on the destination server. If you are using CSF, they can be changed in WHM >> ConfigServer Security & Firewall >> Firewall Configuration For more details, check this article. Alternatively, edit /etc/csf/csf.conf and restart csf (csf -r). If you are using iptables, add the following chain: iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp --dport your_ssh_port -j ACCEPT If you are using a different firewall, refer to it’s man page. The easier way is to whitelist IP of source server on destination server and vice versa. Example: [source] # ifconfig \| grep inet \| head -1 inet 172.16.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 172.16.0.255 [destination] # ifconfig \| grep inet \| head -1 inet 172.16.0.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 172.16.0.255 [source] # csf -a 172.16.0.2 [destination] # csf -a 172.16.0.1 or [source] # iptables -A INPUT -s 172.16.0.2 -j ACCEPT

We will not cover further restrictions as they are used very rarely. If you do use them, make the appropriate changes.

Transfer

When transferring sites between servers via cPanel tools, you will have to choose between Express and non-Express methods. The differences can be found here.

Here is a short summary:

In the case of Express transfers, requests/mails will be redirected to the new server, so no data will be lost (e.g. e-commerce orders). The downside is that if something gets broken, end-users will be affected by it.
If non-Express mode is used, traffic is not redirected. It means that you will have plenty of time to check and fix possible issues, but new emails/database updates will not be carried over.

There are workarounds. For example, you may transfer accounts without express mode, tweak server settings until they all work, remove the accounts from the new server and re-transfer them with Express mode. If your budget or technical knowledge allows, you may set up things such as database replication, or use third-party service/separate server for email handling, etc. Possibilities are endless and depend on the specifics of your business. This guide does not cover them. Neither does Namecheap offer such services.

Run the transfer

1. Go to WHM >> Transfer Tool;
2. Enter the IP of the source server and root password;
3. Click on Scan Remote Server:

4. Select the accounts you want to transfer and hit Copy:

You will get a transfer session ID and cPanel will provide continuous progress updates If the total amount of data to transfer is small (let’s say under 10G). You can wait for the transfer to complete in real-time. Otherwise, copy over the transfer session ID to a safe place and close the page. The process will continue and you will be able to get back to it anytime.

5. Once you think that the transfer is over, log into the server and review the session (if you checked before that the transfer is over and there are no errors, just disconnect and get back to it later).

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/view_transfer transfer_id_you_saved_before --overview

If you see any errors or warnings, you will need to examine the session more closely (without the overview option):

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/view_transfer transfer_id_you_saved_before | less -R

NOTE 1: if you lost the transfer session ID for some reason, check contents of the /var/cpanel/transfer_session folder.

NOTE 2: transfer session may be full of ‘invalid log entry’ errors. They can be ignored. Fixes to the most common relevant errors you may see in transfer sessions are provided below.

Fixing errors in transfer sessions

Error	Solution
‘domain.com’ already exists in userdata	Domain already exists on the target server. Due to this, the tool is not able to transfer it’s userdata settings because it would break the Apache (at the very least) configuration. Most likely, you have created an empty account for that domain on the destination server. If the account with the domain in question holds no valuable data, you can remove it along with the transferred account from the destination server and re-transfer. Another option is to ignore the error and move the contents of the site to the account the domain is tied to on the new server. The owner of the domain can be checked with the following command: /scripts/whoowns domain.com
Databases are not transferred with ‘max_allowed_packet exceeded’ messages.	Databases use big chunks of space to store data. You can confirm this trying to dump the database on the source server mysqldump your_database > your_database.sql If you face similar errors, try this: mysqldump --max_allowed_packet=512M your_database > your_database.sql (increase the value of max_allowed_packet until the error is gone) Once you know what value works, run this both on source and destination servers: cat >> /etc/my.cnf << EOF max_allowed_packet=512M EOF /scripts/restartsrv_mysql After that, remove the affected account on destination and re-transfer it. Alternatively, you can dump databases and transfer them manually (or deselect ‘Home Directory’ in Transfer Tool)
Errors related to source server load in transfer session	Transfer sessions are suspended if the load on the source server is too high. You will need to either wait for a less traffic-heavy period to do the transfer or go for ‘hard’ measures such as shutting down resource-heavy services on the source server (e.g. Apache web-server).

Post-transfer

Now it is time to confirm that the sites/other services work correctly after the transfer.

NOTE: If you have used the Express transfer option and something broke, you will see the results immediately. Due to this, we recommend against using this option if you have a heavily customized setup.

Checking the sites

If your site(s) feature any form of automated tests, run them and act upon the results.
Check the sites on the new server using hosts tools. Using local hosts file is the most reliable. If you see any errors, check the Fixing post-transfer errors section.

NOTE: Do not use an online hosts tool to make any changes to the site (e.g. create new posts) because the database will be updated with URLs containing hosts.cx instead of your site.

Fixing post-transfer errors

No matter how hard you try to maintain the setup and satisfy software requirements, there is a chance that something will not work after the transfer. The following table covers some of the common issues you will face.

Error	Solution
cPanel errors without verbose description2.	1. Try updating cPanel, it works in 95% of cases /scripts/upcp --force 2. If that does not help, check cPanel error log and act accordingly. less /usr/local/cpanel/logs/error_log
The site was working on the old server but broke on the new	Most likely, the new server did not have the same PHP version installed and reverted to the system default. In this case, install the required version and switch to it. Alternatively, you can try switching PHP-FPM for the domain on/off. Both can be done in WHM > MultiPHP Manager If neither of the fixes worked, you will need to examine PHP/Apache error logs for relevant errors.
The following entries in PHP error_log (or on the site, depending on what error_reporting is set) [25-Jun-2020 01:10:00 UTC] PHP Warning: Module 'PDO' already loaded in Unknown on line 0 [25-Jun-2020 01:10:00 UTC] PHP Warning: Module 'pdo_sqlite' already loaded in Unknown on line 0 ....	find /opt/cpanel/ea-php*/root/etc/php.d/zzzzzzz-pecl.ini -delete

If the error is not on the list, you will need to do the research to fix it. First of all, check the logs. Most likely you will find the answer in the following logs:

/var/log/messages	General system log. ftp, named, ssh errors. Kernel messages and many more.
/usr/local/cpanel/logs/error_log	Error log of cPanel itself (errors that you will see on cPanel interface are most likely logged here with extra info)
/var/log/apache2/error_log or /var/log/httpd/error_log	Apache web-server error log
/var/cpanel/php-fpm/user/logs/error.log	User’s php-fpm error log
/opt/cpanel/ea-phpversion/root/var/log/php-fpm/error.log Ex: /opt/cpanel/ea-php56/root/var/log/php-fpm/error.log /opt/cpanel/ea-php72/root/var/log/php-fpm/error.log	Global php-fpm errors for a given version
/home/user/logs	Local user’s php-fpm logs
/home/user/site_document_root/error_log	Local php error log (when php-fpm is not used)

If the necessary information is not found in those locations, check the full list of logs under cPanel here.

If you need extra clues on what the error means/how to fix it, the following resources contain the most reliable information:

cPanel forums
cPanel/WHM documentation
Stackoverflow

Regardless of where you get the information, make sure that you fully understand what the suggested actions do to the system before applying them.

Adjusting DNS and local email/FTP clients

After you have transferred the data and made sure that all errors are fixed, it is time to make the site(s) work from the new server.

If you are using a custom reverse DNS (PTR) record, please reach out to us via Live Chat so that we can set the required PTR for the IP of the new server for you. Otherwise, you may face issues with email deliverability on the new server.
Check email/FTP clients (use the same settings as for the old server, but use IP of the new server as hostname).
Once the steps above are done, you may proceed to the DNS switch. In case you are using private DNS servers for all domains on the server, you will simply need to register them with new IPs (which can be found in WHM > Edit a DNS Zone menu).

If the domain is registered with Namecheap, refer to this article. Otherwise, find the necessary instructions on the site of your registrar. If you are using other nameservers (for example, Cloudflare), the records from the new (destination) server should be copied over to them. Keep in mind that DNS propagation may last up to 24-48 hours.

If you have reached this point, the transfer is over and all your sites are working from the new server.

That’s it.

Updated

7/29/2020

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