Migrate to new server
 

My server needs to be upgraded to Ubuntu 12.
What are the right steps to "easily" migrate to the new server?
(db's, data, mail, ispconfig etc)

Pffff as a linux noob this is some job.....

For example on the old server I want to copy /var folder (using scp) to the new server keeping file permissions. I tried to copy them but access is denied because only root can copy these files?

I used Is this command correct?

How can I get root access to the new server to be able to copy the files to the new server?

On Ubuntu, you must enable the root account by setting a root password:

Falko,
Did it but when trying to connect I get Permission denied.

Changed "PermitRootLogin yes" in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and restarted ssh and it works now!

2nd question.

I want to copy the files from the old server to the new server. How should I do this? I want to keep the permissions and owners like it is on the old server.

You can do this with rsync: http://www.howtoforge.com/mirroring_with_rsync

Hi, I had a need to move twice so first time I've just compressed www and copied on new server with ispconfig and recreated pages. Dunno why but I had troubles with server after doing that. Server would randomly crash. Anyway then I moved to another server but this time I've rsynced almost everything. Problem is I've already installed ispconfig with tutorial and then moved all data. That caused some trouble with cron, mysql, and user accounts but it was all fixable (config files or passwords were wrong) and it's working now without a problem, So rsync worked for me great. Anyway what failed is ssh logins, dunno why but whatever I did, I was unable to login to new server so I had to delete and create again ssh account for all users.

There's a saying in Dutch (in my best English translation): I don't see the forrest because of all the trees.
Untill now it's not clear how to do a "good" migration to a new server. Is it an idea to create a sticky about this?

*I copied (with rsync) all the data from
/var/www
/etc
/var/log/ispconfig/httpd
/var/vmail
/var/lib/mysql
(databases were not available on new server when I did this, so I dumped the db's on the old server and copied them to the new server with: ) For some reason the dbispconfig database was not imported so I imported it by hand via phpmyadmin.

Do I need to copy more or is this enough??
Is there anything I missed?

Till/Falko,
Idea to create write a sticky or howto how to backup a server running ispconfig and restoring it to a new server?

I now try to combine a lot of posts but still not clear what to do and which steps to do.

Rudolf.