Failed CPanel > Virtualmin migration attempt, Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS

Everything I’ve read says that migrations from CPanel to Virtualmin are done all the time, but with the setup I’m attempting to use, it just wont work for me.

Ok, the full CPanel backup was generated from CPanel Version 11.38.1 (build 15) . If I pull the file down locally, it unpacks just fine. It is about a 12GB file that contains one main domain and three add-on/subdomains. It is my understanding that the Virtualmin migration should be able to handle this.

When attempting to migrate on an Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS install using Webmin version 1.631 and VirtualMin version 4.01.gpl installed via the automated install script, and trying via both the web interface and command line, all it will ever do is give me this message:

Validating migration file …
… validation failed : Not a cPanel tar.gz file : Un-archive command failed : /bin/tar: Removing leading `/’ from member names /bin/tar: Skipping to next header /bin/tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors

I copied the file via SCP from the server it was generated on to the server where the migration was attempted. I checked the MD5SUM on both servers and they matched. Anybody have any ideas? I don’t know if this has to do with the OS or if it is simply something to do with the way this particular version of CPanel generates the backup file. I kind of doubt that they majorly change the backup file generation though, as it would then make it difficult to move between providers that have different versions of CPanel running. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Howdy,

Hmm, that should indeed work.

When you’re running the import, is the cPanel backup file on the Virtualmin server itself? Or is it on a remote server?

I could see a case where a backup file that large could have some problems if it were stored remotely.

-Eric

It is stored locally to the Virtualmin install…not on a remote server. It is also not in the /tmp directory as I know that can sometimes cause issues.

Since I originally tried this on a VPS running Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS, I decided to try the same scenario on a VirtualBox install that was set up the same way (same OS, RAM, Processor) and it did exactly the same thing.

Just FYI, I just tried everything again on a fresh install of CentOS 6.4 and got exactly the same error:

Validating migration file …
… validation failed : Not a cPanel tar.gz file : Un-archive command failed : /bin/tar: Removing leading `/’ from member names /bin/tar: Skipping to next header /bin/tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous er

Hmm, what output do you receive if you run this command:

tar tzfv CPANEL_BACKUP.tar.gz >/dev/null

That command will go through all the files in the archive, but not actually do anything with them… however, if there’s an error of some sort, it should get displayed.

Hmmmm…

Well, that does produce the same errors as the migration reported…

tar: Removing leading `/’ from member names
tar: Skipping to next header
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors

I just have to wonder why cPanel would create a backup file with issues. It didn’t report any errors on the status report it sent me. I can try to create another backup, but I’m just afraid if I keep doing it that my current host will shut me down for so called “abuse” since it is using up a decent amount of CPU to compress about 15GB of data.

Howdy,

Yeah, it sounds as if, for some reason, there’s some sort of error with the tar archive… but the error is fairly generic, so it’s difficult to determine what that might be.

Is it possible to generate a backup that doesn’t contain all the home directory data?

If so, you could always import that, and then manually copy over the rest of your files.

-Eric