Hello,

Does someone know how to handle a migration from a RAQ3 (30 sites) to an Intel ISP 1100?

Is there any utility for it?
Any problems too look out for?

I have a RAQ3 somewhere and I was offered a brand new Intel ISP 1100 with pIII 800 / 256 RAM but the deal includes that I do the transfer myself but I never did it before.

Thank you?

I have not migrated in the route you are but I have handled a few migrations...from sparc to linux, from irix to linux, from redhat linux to cobalt linux, etc.

I am not sure if there are automatic migration tools or not. My experience has not been great when shifting to very different platforms -- going from Irix to Linux is no fun.

If you cannot find an migration tool, here are some things I've learned the hardway....

Default Paths
You want to check the differences between default paths to things like:
user's home directory
user's web directory
applications (perl, python, etc)

We move some accounts once and all of the scripts were broken ... as it turned out perl was in /usr/local/bin/perl not /usr/bin/perl. The symlink that was present was incorrect -- so we had to re link perl so that cgi-scripts would function properly.

File Paths
Many users may have specified full paths in their scripts. If you do not set up the paths the same on the new server, all of these scripts may fail or not work properly. If you have allowed users to install their own scripts, this can be dangerous as the scripts may not have appropriate error handling.


Backups
We backup every user's files in different tar archives. This way should anything go wrong -- we have the user's files exactly as they were orginally.

Apache Config
Make sure the httpd.conf on the new server supports the same features as on the old server. Also check to see what directory (www, public_html, web) is used as the users web directory. Many internet appliances come with vendor modified httpd.conf files. Always check these if you are having a problem with a site.

Apache Modules
Make sure you have the same modules on both machines. Forgetting some custom module can drive you crazy.


Cgi-wrappers
My Raqs all use cgi-wrappers as do many other servers. Make sure that cgi-wrappers are not configured differently between the two systems.


Mail System Relays
If you have configured SMTP relays for your mail server, make sure these get moved over as well. Cleints can get pretty mad :angry: when their email goes down.


Testing
Test everything before you change any DNS records. When we migrate our servers, we usually have both of them funning for a short time. We put the new server on a new IP and then change our nameserver records when we are ready to go live.