Prelude:
Hello. I am writing this tutorial because this is a solid method I have used in the past for easily migrating cPanel accounts from one server to another. Using this method, you can transfer accounts from an old server, to a new one, help customers from another host move to your host, etc. This method is very simple, and does not even require root access on one end of the migration. I have found the "Transfer Account from another Server" tool in WHM to not work so well, and break often, so I have used this method.

Requirements:
-cPanel on both servers
-WHM access on the new server (one that the accounts are being moved to)
-root access on the new server

Throughout the instructions I will refer to the server your are transfering the accounts from as the "old server", and the server to are transfering the accounts to as the "new server".


Instructions:
1. Log into WHM of your new server and create a new account called "restore", or anything you like for that matter. Remember the FTP address, username ('restore', in this example), and account password. We will need these for later.


2. Log into the cPanel account you are wanting to transfer on the old server.


3. Click on "Backup >> Generate/Download a Full Backup".


4. Once here, select the backup destination to be "Remote FTP Server".


5. Enter your email address for verification, follwed by all of the FTP account information for "restore", which we created on the new server.

-Remote Server: new server's address
-Remote User: restore
-Remote Password: restore's password
-Port: 21

Then, click "Generate Backup". This may take some time to backup the files, depending on how large the account is. You should receive an email provided in the above info once it is complete.


6. Now, log into SSH on your new server.


7. Type in the following commands:

cd /home/restore/public_html

ls

After running the list command above (ls), you should see the tar file of the account on the old server. This means that you have successfully sent the file via FTP to your new server.


8. Now move the tar file to your new server's /home directory with the following command:

mv tar_file_name /home


9. Now, log into WHM on your new server and navigate to "Backup >> Restore a Full Backup/cpmove file"

Once here, you should see the old account's username under "Possible cpmove archives found:".

If you do not, log back into SSH and be sure that the account's tar file has been moved into /home.


10. Type in the account name in the text field in WHM, which is proceeded by "Enter the username for the account you wish to restore:".


11. Click "Restore".


12. Repeate process for additional accounts.



That's all there is to it! I have found this way to work alot more sufficiently for moving accounts from one server to another. Hope you all enjoyed!


Regards,
Kyle

Thansk!
cPanel is the most user-friendly control panel and it helped me alot in the account copy/transfer

No problem. Glad this tutorial has been helpful. ;)

I'm noob in this things. Can there be problem it there are diferent versions of cPanel on servers (both are cPAnel 10, but not sure for subverson).

And can there be a problem if there are different versions (default encoding and etc) of mysql?

MySQL versions may present a problem, but the versions of cPanel should be ok!


Kyle

It look like everything went fine. Thanks.

Glad it helped!


Cheers.

Hi,

I tried this tutorial but without success. I couldn't locate any tar file.
questions, What should i put for the remote server? is it my WHM server's address? so it should be www.my-WHM-domain.com (http://www.my-WHM-domain.com) ?

thanks...

For the remote server address, put the IP of your new server.


Let me know if you need any more help.

hi xxkylexx,

Still the tar file did not successfully sent via ftp.

Let me give you the step that i did, may i did it wrong somewhere?
- first i log into my WHM server and do Create a New Account.
- now here i didn't name it restore but the same name as the one in the old server, in this case, the domain is hesterbasoeki.com, with the new username and new password.
- then i log into old server cpanel and goto Backup>Generate/Download a Full Backup, and then:
Backup Destination: Remote FTP Server
Remote Server (FTP/SCP only): (my ip address that i used for hesterbasoeki.com, not the server IP right? I was assigned 2 IPs)
Remote User (FTP/SCP only): username
Remote Password (FTP/SCP only): password
Port (FTP/SCP only) : 21
Remote Dir (FTP/SCP only) : EMPTY
- next I go to my virtuozzo power panel and log into SSH, and do then like you said type: cd /home/'username'/public_html, then ls.

But i didn't see any tar file in there.
So did I do it wrong?

Thank you so much for your help.

Make sure you are using the new server's primary IP address for "Remote Server". Also, have a look in "/home/'username'/" as well as "/home/'username'/public_html" for the tar's.

You should be able to FTP into the account on the new server and see the tar's if they were successfully sent to the new server.


Kyle

hi Kyle,

Thanks, it works!
the tar file was actually inside /home/restore/, not in /home/restore/public_html/.

Thanks so much... this will save me quite a lot of time.

Ricky

Glad to help. :)

Big Big help i just used it.

Is there any harm in having the "to move" account already set up on the new server?

I set my mydomain.com and then transferred over the mydomain.com backup. Everything seemed to go well.

What I am asking is, how important is it to have the RESTORE account? It didn't seem necessary in my case.

Thanks btw, nice simple method.

The "restore" account isn't required, no. Your method should work just fine.

Glad to help!

Hello,

I am upgrading hardware & OS for my cpanel server. & I am planning to transfer my old accounts to new server.

I read all user's comment on your method of transfering account.

while i transfer whole account from old to New server, will it take care of account detail, type of plan, usage detail (of current month)?

Vijay.

BTW, just a week away before migrating to new server (So all i know is just theorital knowledge, practicle experience - i would do in next week.)

Hi,
but if the Old Server´s admin hidden the Backup Icon of cPanel.

I have a customer that I don´t get transfer account, because the old server´s admin hidden the backup icon of cPanel

This means that they have disabled the backup option from the root WHM. You need to ask then either to provide the current cpmove backup or enable that so that you can take backups.

I am getting this error when i try to move the account: 450-Error during write to file: File too large

Is there any solution to it?

I am not aware of that error, sorry.

Kyle

Amazing! Thanks very much!

But I have a question.. more like a general one.

I transfered accounts using both this way and the default WHM way for smaller accounts.. and always on the new server it shows the new accounts to be smaller in size..

so if the original was 2 M the new one will be 1 M
if it was 39 M it will become 29 M

is that normal??

Thanks!

thank you Kyle, very helpfull

That's all there is to it! I have found this way to work alot more sufficiently for moving accounts from one server to another. Hope you all enjoyed!


Regards,
Kyle

i just wanted to say thank you, this worked perfect for an account that WHM wouldnt move with its account transfer process

I want to move accounts between 2 cpanel servers (both having root and SSH access). How to go about it?

I want to move accounts between 2 cpanel servers (both having root and SSH access). How to go about it?


That's what the tutorial is for. Just read...?

I just want to the first to thank you in 2008 for this tutorial :D

Great tool!

Ps: Please edit the address /home/restore/ instead of public_html

This is an extremely useful tutorial! Thanks for sharing :)

Hey Kyle,

Thanks for the Tutorial. I knew this one However,

I have a Question:

How do We move Only mYSQL databases From Old One to New? or Only files. (not entire files).

I mean to say "Specific thing"

Any Ideas?

Thank you

Nice guide. Thanks for posting, its very useful :)

I like to thank U for this extremely educating tutorial you have come up with, though I have been browsing WHT for some time now, but it is this article of your's which has compiled me to register and post a 'thankU' to you for all your help.

People like you makeup the community to provide a chance for people like me(dumb) to learn some thing so informative an easy to understand, all b'coz of your help.

May Lord JESUS Christ Bless you !!

still the dns stuff :)