The ISPConfig Migration Toolkit consists of two applications. The ISPConfig Migration Tool 2.0 and ISPCopy 1.0.
The Migration Tool helps you to import data from other control panels (currently ISPConfig 2 and 3 – 3.2, Plesk 10 – 12.5, Plesk Onyx. CPanel* and Confixx 3) into a new ISPConfig 3, 3.1 or ISPConfig 3.2 single- or multiserver installation. The tool can also be used to import the configuration and data from an ISPConfig 3 server into another ISPConfig 3, 3.1 or ISPConfig 3.2 server, use cases are e.g. merging of several standalone servers into a new single or multiserver setup and also migrations where you want to move a complete ISPConfig installation from an old to a new server.
* The Migration Toolkit contains now beta support for migrating CPanel to ISPConfig. Please contact our support if you encounter any problems with your CPanel to ISPConfig Migration.
The ISPCopy Tool copies an ISPConfig installation ‘as it is’ to a new server. While the Migration Tool is doing a data import into ISPConfig by using the ISPConfig remote API, ISPCopy is using the approach to copy the ISPConfig installation incl. config files of the services configured by ISPConfig like Apache, Nginx, Postfix, Amavis, Dovecot, and PureFTPD directly to the new server by SSH. ISPCopy should be chosen instead of the Migration Tool for cases where you want to move an exact copy of ISPConfig to a new server or when you want to move a slave server of a multiserver installation to a new system without disconnecting it from the master or moving the master without disconnecting the slave servers.
The Migration Tool reads data from the source server’s control panel database (currently ISPConfig 2 and 3, 3.1 and 3.2, Plesk 10 – 12.5, Plesk Onyx, CPanel or Confixx 3) and creates the corresponding accounts on the target ISPConfig 3, 3.1 or ISPConfig 3.2 server using the ISPConfig remoting API.
During migration, the tool copies over all the files from the migrated accounts (web, email, databases). It also replaces all occurrences of the old website path with the new one in all website files, same with IP addresses.
All passwords and account names are kept during migration but you can reserve usernames for clients, FTP accounts etc. (e. g. if you want to merge multiple servers to one). Accounts from the source server that conflict with those names are either prefixed by a defined constant or a suffix _1, _2 is appended.
All those actions are logged, so you can check what names have been changed.
Please take a look at the ISPConfig Migration Tool (single server) tutorial for detailed instructions.
The applications of the ISPConfig Migration Toolkit requires you to have a valid license to use them. You don’t need an extra license for the target server or further source servers. The migration script asks for the license key when you start it.
The tools support PHP versions between 5.3 – 7.4 on the source server. The PHP version on the target server does not matter, it just has to be supported by ISPConfig itself.
When an ISPConfig installation is migrated, then the ISPConfig version on the new server must be the same or a newer version than the ISPconfig version that is used on the old server. In other words: you can not use the tools to downgrade a system to an older ISPConfig release.
The Tools require the ioncube loader. The ioncube loader will be installed automatically in a temporary folder if it is not already present on the server, there is no manual configuration required, the php.ini of your server is not altered.
You cannot migrate from and to the same server. You need one source server and one target server. The source server is the one that has the data you want to import, the target server is the one with ISPConfig 3, 3.1 or 3.2 already installed. You can not use the Migration Tool to coy data between two slave server nodes that are connected to the same master server, use ISPCopy instead in this case.
Currently, the Migration Tool cannot import client templates (the client limits get imported). ISPCopy is not affected by this limitation.
You can find tutorials for setting up a new ISPConfig server here. We recommend to use Debian or Ubuntu, but CentOS works as well.
Your installed PHP version on the server needs to support MySQL, SOAP and SSL. Check that you have those PHP modules installed, otherwise, the importer might fail to work.
You need to have postfix with courier or dovecot as mail server on the SOURCE server.
The following source control panels are supported by now:
By default, the importer identifies accounts by username. That means if you already have an FTP account named “myftpuser” on your TARGET server, the importer will overwrite this one if an account with the same name exists on the SOURCE.
You can configure names to reserve during importer run. If you defined “myftpuser” as reserved, the importer will rename the newly imported account with the same name to “myftpuser_2”.
The importer can be run with an argument –server-prefix to change this behavior. All possible arguments are explained in the MIGRATE section below.
The importer creates a migrate.log where you can see all errors and warnings that occurred. You will find all renamed account names in here, too.
When the target server has to use dovecot IMAP and not courier IMAP if it is a mail server. Courier is supported as source server but not as target. All recent ISPConfig perfect server tutorials use dovecot anyway.
The Migration Toolkit license key is valid for 1 year and can be used on up to 10 source servers, unlimited times. The licensing period starts when you use the license key the first time. The Migration Toolkit can be used multiple times on multiple servers. The license key may only be used by the buyer (individual person or company that bought the license key), the license key may not be shared with others. All updates of the Migration Toolkit that get released during the license period are included in the license.
SOURCE: the server with the data you want to import.
TARGET: the new server with ISPConfig 3, 3.1 or 3.2 installed.
Copy the program archive to the SOURCE server and extract it to a folder of your choice. We recommend to use /root/migration as we will use this directory in this README. If you choose a different directory, please keep in mind to change the path in the commands we mention in here.
You should now be ready to start your migration. The importer will tell you everything you have to configure on your SOURCE or TARGET system during the migration run.
The most simple way to use the importer is:
/root/migration/migrate
There are some arguments that you can use to define the behavior of the importer, please see README file in the migration tool tar.gz file for details.
– Both servers must run the same OS.
– Supported Operating Systems are Debian, Ubuntu and CentOS.
– The target server must have all services installed that are
required for ISPConfig (same configuration as the source server).
ISPConfig itself may be installed on the target system but
this is not a requirement as the tool will move the ISPConfig
installation from source to target server.
– The source server must have enough free space to dump MySQL
databases (one at a time) in the temporary system folder.
Copy the tool to the source server (e.g. to the /tmp or /root
directory, unpack the tar.gz file and start it with:
cd isp_copy
./isp_copy
Then follow the instructions on the screen. The ISPCopy tool will
create a key based SSH login for the root user to allow logins
from source to target in case that no such login exists yet.
It is recommended to run an ISPConfig update on the target system
with “reconfigure services = yes” when the migration is finished.
If you encounter any problems while using the importer, please contact support.
Please provide the complete error messages you get and append the migrate.log to your mail.
