Migrating Virtualmin pro to a new server

Virtualmin
1

I have Virtualmin 1.226 (EA1) on (Redhat Enterprise Linux 3ES) installed and working.

I am about to move this installation to a new server and hope to accomplish this by a simple restore. I expect to follow this procedure:

  1. Install current Virtualmin pro (2.99) on the new RHEL4 box.
  2. Restore all users (etc/passwd and friends) from the RHEL3 box.
  3. Restore the entire /home directory structure* from the RHEL3 box.
  4. Restore the Virtualmin configuration* from the RHEL3 box.
  5. Use "Virtualmin Servers/Change IP Address" to update shared address.
  6. Restore MySQL database from the RHEL3 box.

*backups made with Virtualmin backup utilities.

I hope this will result in a running installation on the RHEL4 box, but I am concerned about changes in IP addresses in httpd.conf, DNS config and other possible locations. Might there be issues with Postfix config and others? I have several virtual hosts with dedicated IP address, so I suspect there will be some manual updating required.

I have 16 sites total, so a search and replace to change IP addresses is tolerable, if know all the places to look, but if there is a better way I’d like to hear about it.

I have looked at "Chapter 9. Migrating to Virtualmin" in the manual, but this does not appear to apply to a Virtualmin-to-Virtualmin migration.

If this is likely to result in a big mess, where I would be better off creating the virtual servers, DNS config, email config, users and groups, etc "by hand" using the Virtualmin UI, I would like to know that before I spend a lot of time trying to do it "the easy way".

Comments, ideas and experience in this area would be most helpful.

Thanks in advance,

-Glen

2

Hey Glen,

You shouldn’t need to re-create anything Virtualmin related. Recent versions of Virtualmin can now backup just about everything–server templates, all users (mailbox and domain owners), databases, virtual host details, Webmin configurations for each domain, etc.). So, the hope is that you just need to backup each domain, backup the Virtualmin settings, and then restore from the backups on your new machine. If it fails in any way, we’d like to fix it–so try it and let us know about it. We’ll try to get it fixed fast enough such that you don’t spend a lot of time having to hand-fix things.

Since some of these features are new, not a lot of experience in the field is likely to exist. You’ll be a bold adventurer. But we’ll help if things fall apart.

3

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the reply.

I tried the list I suggested above and

  1. Restore the Virtualmin configuration* from the RHEL3 box.

Trashed the server, rendering it unbootable. The reason, now obvious in hind-site, it that I restored all configuration data, which was hardware specific to the source server. Remember I am moving the system to a new box.

The critical issue here, I think, is performing a whole system restore, vs. a restore of domains and Virtualmin configuration to a new Virtualmin installation.

I have come to believe that a whole system restore is just not practical as Linux (like any OS) is just entirely too hardware dependant.

I have had to move on to other pressing demands at the moment, but I will get back to this in a few days. I’ll report back according to my experience then.

-Glen