Discussion for New Server Platform & Features Announcement

[DWalley]

OK, I am going out of town on THursday and want to get this done. I will be wathcing the thread.

[AndrewT]

As per the thread in the announcements forum pertaining to your upgrade: you should not make any DNS changes until we have updated the thread stating that the transfers have been completed (you will then also be directed to make the DNS changes). This only started about 2 hours ago and may take 24 hours or so to complete.

[DWalley]

How's it looking Andrew? Can I change my DNS on my domains yet for Cpanel 13?

Dwayne Walley

[AndrewT]

That is the only option really. Alternatively they could access webmail via http://cpanel13.gzo.com/webmail/ on the new server just to see if any missing messages arrived there.

I will say that *most* uses that check their e-mail fairly frequently won't have or notice any problems. Though if they mention a missing e-mail it likely got delivered to the old server.

[DWalley]

Any easier instructions, lol. That will be a task because right now they are ung their own email servers tied to their domains and most are not very computer literate. Maybe ill just take my chances and just change the DNS on the domains and let it go.

[AndrewT]

They'll need to setup two e-mail accounts in their e-mail client. One can use cpanel13.gzo.com as the mail server and the other can use cpanel61.gzo.com. They can remove the cpanel13 account after 24-48 hours.

[DWalley]

If I need my customers to check both servers for their mail. Then how di tell them to do that. They only have one username, password and mailserver for their email acount??

[AndrewT]

All of what I said still applies regardless of what nameservers you are using. If you have edited your DNS zones manually via WHM to add/modify particular entires then you will have to do the same on the new server. During the DNS propragation some e-mail will go to the old server and some to the new. You will need to check e-mail using both servers for a few days if this is important to you.

[DWalley]

if I only have the nameservers to change at registrar then I shoud not have any dns zones to worry about. correct?

I am using my own nameservers.
Whith my own nameservers I won't have to switch mail servers, that should be taken are of when I switch my dns.

[AndrewT]

Nothing will be down during this upgrade. There really isn't anything to worry about. All you have to do is change your DNS once the transfer is completed if you are not using our gzo.com nameservers. The only thing to keep in mind is that during this process some mail may go to the old server instead of the new one so you may want to check both accounts if it is important (using cpanel13.gzo.com and cpanel61.gzo.com as the servers).

If you did edited your DNS zones manually via WHM then you will have to change them once again on the new server.

[DWalley]

Our upgrade for Cpanel 13 is tomorrow. I assume that the DNS zone issues (if any) are going to be taken care of.

Andrew, does everything look like it should be a smooth upgrade for those of us that have our own DNS and those that are hosting emails on the servers?

That is my main concern. My customers and their emails. Well the site too but emails being down would really hurt them.

DWalley

[Pedja]

The DNS zone templates not being transfered prior to *some* accounts being restored was an error on our part, for that I apologize.

Most important is that error is detected and fixed.

Although, very few accounts were even restored by the time this was corrected. I don't believe these even apply to new accounts that are restored from backups. Only to those accounts created via your own WHM.

Actualy, I realized problem when about 80% of my cpanel accounts were transfered.

cPanel/WHM does not actively record your custom DNS settings, they are just thrown into the DNS zone file with everything else. It is virtually impossible for it to know how to handle them properly, especially when transfering to/from another server. It does not have the intelligence to know which entries should be transfered and which shouldn't. All it does is handle the entries for subdomains and other items that you add directly via cPanel.

I understand this is problem that should be addressed to cpanel stuff, but this is issue here. I do not expect Dathorn stuff to solve it, but to try to recognize meaning of this problem, and try to help to minimize it.

This is why it becomes your responsibility to maintain your custom DNS settings if you desire to do so

That is ok, but I hope you understand that this is completely illogical for anyone who is computer literate? Noone expects that he has to take care of DNS zone, especialy if thre is no obvious mean to get its contents, right?

I found about it in a hard way, long time ago so i was prepared for that

WHM access is disabled on the old server to prevent any further account/package/feature list/etc. modifications to the old server while we are performing the transfer and to clue some customers in that they shouldn't be accessing WHM on the old server any longer.

That has some lgoic, but there is the same problem with cpanel accounts there are accessible during the tranfer. User can also make changes there...

You can alway allow acces to WHM after transfer completes, because then it is not important even if user changes something.

Regarding e-mail, if you are using POP3, setup accounts in your e-mail clients to download from both servers.

Yes, and I instructed one user to do so, because he is literate enough to understand what is the point. With others, it would just be loosing the time, and there are numbers of them. Transfer would be over before I could have time to explain all of them what to do and why to do.

Transfering these new e-mails to the new server is quite difficult, particularly in some of these upgrades because of the complete change in mail formats from mbox to maildir.

I did not mean to transfer mail but to forward to another SMTP server (new server) when it is received. That should be pretty easy to setup.

[AndrewT]

Going to address a few things...

The DNS zone templates not being transfered prior to *some* accounts being restored was an error on our part, for that I apologize. Although, very few accounts were even restored by the time this was corrected. I don't believe these even apply to new accounts that are restored from backups. Only to those accounts created via your own WHM.

cPanel/WHM does not actively record your custom DNS settings, they are just thrown into the DNS zone file with everything else. It is virtually impossible for it to know how to handle them properly, especially when transfering to/from another server. It does not have the intelligence to know which entries should be transfered and which shouldn't. All it does is handle the entries for subdomains and other items that you add directly via cPanel. This is why it becomes your responsibility to maintain your custom DNS settings if you desire to do so, and few customers actually even do this. WHM doesn't offer a convenient text view of your DNS zones unless you error it out. We've discussed this very issue here on the forums before and this is not something that we have control over.

WHM access is disabled on the old server to prevent any further account/package/feature list/etc. modifications to the old server while we are performing the transfer and to clue some customers in that they shouldn't be accessing WHM on the old server any longer.

Custom nameservers should NEVER be setup as CNAMEs. They should always be specifically set to IP addresses using A records.

Regarding e-mail, if you are using POP3, setup accounts in your e-mail clients to download from both servers. Otherwise you still do have plenty of time to access the old server to download/view (such as via webmail) e-mails that might have gotten caught there. Transfering these new e-mails to the new server is quite difficult, particularly in some of these upgrades because of the complete change in mail formats from mbox to maildir.

[Pedja]

I am pretty satisfied how cpanel transfer went. It seems there were no mayor issues with my clients, mostly because most client sites are not dynamic in contents. On few rare issues, support stuff was quick in response and very helpful.


What you should pay attention to:

- all DNS zones are recreated from scratch upon transfer. This means that all custom entries in DNS zones will be lost, not just MX records as stated in transfer announcements.

- DNS zone templates are not copied upon transfer, meaning that all DNS zones would be created using default templates, which may not be what you wanted. You will have to manually edit each DNS zone

- at the moment when transfer starts, your WHM account on old server becomes unaccessible. That means that all information available only through WHM panel, will not be available any more. So, if you do not have records of manual changes in DNS zones, you will have to ask support for copy of each DNS zone.

- there is no easy way to make backup of DNS zone settings. There is no way to copy DNS zone settings from old to new server. You have to do it manually.

- if you used cpanel nameserver mnemonic addresses on domain registration, you will have to change DNS information for each domain on all registrars where domains are registered.

- CPanel accounts will be available on old server during and after transfer, so you can relay on getting all information available that way

- WHM and CPanel options that are not turned on by default (you have to ask for them) will not be available on new server until you ask for them, even if they were turned on on old server

- during the transfer all email for client domains will still come to the old server. That email would not all be copied to the new server. After the transfer, when you start changing DNS, email will come on both server, due time spread of DNS refreshing, so you will end up with some email on old and some email on new server. You have to deal with it somehow.

What you can do:

- DNS zone information is hard to get. The simplest way I found out is to make change in DNS zone, but enter wrong data, so you get error. Error report would display DNS zone information in plain text which you may copy and paste somewhere. Do not care about error, because erroneous entry would not be saved.

During several years of my relation to Dathorn, I asked option which would provide simple way to get DNS zone information several times, and each time, answer was negative. I hope, this is good example to show support stuff, that DNS zone is important and that we should have some way to get to it.

- DNS zone is not even backuped at all. I have understanding that DNS zone manipulation is difficult, but I sincerely hope that Dathorn stuff would realize that DNS zone is of vital importance for each domain, and this information should be backed up, copied together with other domain settings, and especially, available to domain admin. If DNS zone is lost, damaged or not copied literally, this has the worst consequences on domain functionality. It is unacceptable that DNS zone is hidden and inaccessible for any purpose.

- DNS zone template should be copied first on WHM account and then cpanel accounts should be created, including DNS zone for each domain, using those templates. it is unacceptable, that after the transfer, we have to manually edit DNS zones for domains gathered during several years, to get them to proper shape, which they had before the transfer. There are possibly far to much custom entries that it is not polite just to say: "we'll we cannot do anything about it, you have to edit all that manually". It is not just problem of excessive physical labor needed, but that there is no easy way to find all missing stuff and recreate them.

- I do not understand why WHM account on old server has to be disabled. It is much easier if I, myself can go through settings on old and new server and find out what has not been transfered properly. I am now left to wait for my clients to complain that something is not working correctly.

- About domain registrations and DNS. The best practice is to use custom name server addresses. Make dns1.yourdomain.com and ns2.yourdomain.com as aliases to cpanel DNS addresses, and use your custom ns addresses for domain registrations. That way, all you have to do is to point your dns addresses to new IP addresses of nameservers and you do not have to go through timewastefull operation of changing DNS information for each domain.

I, hopefully, did create custom nameserver addresses at the begining, and that actually saved my business, because, for most of domains hosted at my account, registrar is slow, all changes must be requested personally in written form, and procedure of any change takes days. If I had to go through that, I would be linched by my clients, because, their domains would be out of order until DNS change procedure finishes. I am talking about procedure that last from one to four weeks, just to change DNS. Dathorn could be very helpful on this, by keeping old mnemonic address for nameservers and just change IP they point to.

But, related to DNS Zone editing problem, now I have a missmatch. I had DNS zone temlate set to insert my custom nameserver addresses instead of cpanel's which corelated with information provided to registrars on domain registration. After the transfer, all that is changed. DNS zones now state cpanels nameservers addresses for each domain instead of my custom addresses. They now do not match to information written in registrars. I am not sure if this would be treated as improper. National registrars are quite rigorous on such issues. Standard response from Dathorn stuff on this issue probably would be: "we cannot do anything about that, you have to edit manually".

- you cannot do much about email arriving on both servers during the transfer and DNS refreshing time. I decided to simply ignore the problem and hope that, during that time, not much important mail will be lost. Actually, I did what I could to maximally shorten the time, by doing opposite to advice proposed in transfer announcement. I did change DNS before transfer finished. I followed the logic that it is less damaging if some site is not available for few ours than that some email is lost. I managed it pretty well and with satisfactory results. I believe that Dathorn stuff could do more to solve this problem, for instance by setting old server to forward all arriving email to new server before transfer starts. If some domain is not transfered but email comes, that email would be returned to sender with appropriate explanation, which is much better than that email to be just lost.

To finish this, I want to say that I would not like this to be understood as whining or complaining. I am pretty satisfied how transfer went, that I had just few issues, how I handled issues, and also how Dathorn stuff responded to help solving them. I am also satisfied to see that new server works evidently better than old one, which shows that Dathorn cares about quality of their service.

This is just observation on problems you can expect, targeted to the people who are about to have their account transferred, and also about issues that showed up on this occasion but are, actually, present in everyday use of Dathorn service.

[AndrewT]

Sorry, we will not be pushing back the upgrade. You do not need to worry about making backups any more so than normal. cpanel14b will remain online as it is. The accounts will simply be copied to the new server.