I am doing a migration from VHCS, which there is no import/migration support for in VM, and I have 108 domains that need to be created.
One of the parameters is the password. Is that the plain text password or the hashed password? What I only have is the md5 hashes — will this work or not?
JamieCameron wrote:
Well after looking at VHCS backup feature I can say it officially sucks and I would tell people to never use that CP.
Synopsis:
VHCS stores EVERYTHING in mysql databases – including users and passwords. It saves nothing in system files or files of any kind. Even it’s backup is so limited that it’s useless. Doesn’t even backup any account databases, just website content.
So if a import feature would be created I think it would be useless, maybe?
Anyways I’m off to have some more mini-strokes from this migration which has taken me far longer then it should have if VHCS had done things logical instead of smoking crack when coding.
Hmmmm I got another question - if no password is put in the field will VM generate passwords for the batch created domains ?
What the hell is going on ? All my posts are out of sync here – even the times don’t match up.
Joe – you screwing around with the website?
No, it will leave the password as blank.
If the VHCS backup doesn’t contain meta-information like the site description and password, it isn’t too useful. If it is just a file of website content, you could ‘migrate’ it by creating the same domain in Virtualmin, then just extracting the tar or zip file.
I think it contains meta-information but the databases VHCS creates are rather large so even if you could create an import for it timeouts most likely would occur if the database is large.
Yep.
See here:
http://www.virtualmin.com/forums/news/forums-time-zone-change.html#7021
As you know, the forums aren’t quite perfect yet…so I’m working on them. 
Hey Scott,
I’ve asked Jamie to chime in.
I will point out that MD5 won’t work for setting up databases, or any other services, because all other services use different types of hash for passwords. That said, since VHCS doesn’t handle much beyond the basics of user+web+DNS, there probably isn’t much data to be lost because of a lack of password…nearly all of the stuff we need the plaintext password for isn’t going to be in the VHCS accounts, anyway.
So, there’s certainly a way to bring those accounts over without too much pain…just a question of automating most of it away, and then cleaning up by hand the bits and pieces that can’t be automated.
Yes, the plain text password is needed, as Virtualmin uses it later to setup things like MySQL and DAV which use different password hashing systems to MD5. So if you know it for a domain you are creating, you should enter it.
If not, the import will generally still work, as Virtualmin will take the hashed password from the backup and put it into /etc/shadow.
Is there a import for VHCS that you guys are working on then?
Mail aliases are also going to be a pain – I don’t see any way to do that except by hand.
I’m not working on VHCS migration at the moment, but if you send me some backup files via email I could take a look at implementing it…
Joe wrote:
I’ve asked Jamie to chime in.
I will point out that MD5 won’t work for setting up databases, or any other services, because all other services use different types of hash for passwords. That said, since VHCS doesn’t handle much beyond the basics of user+web+DNS, there probably isn’t much data to be lost because of a lack of password…nearly all of the stuff we need the plaintext password for isn’t going to be in the VHCS accounts, anyway.
So, there’s certainly a way to bring those accounts over without too much pain…just a question of automating most of it away, and then cleaning up by hand the bits and pieces that can’t be automated.
This is for batch creating domains – I hope you mean the same thing as importing here.
I’ll see if VHCS has backups for you to look at.