ALTS LLC APACHE Web Server Support

Create a FreeBSD Shadow Account
Virtual Server customers who wish to move to this improved platform will be provided a new "shadow account" for migrating all of their current BSD/OS Virtual Server files. To create a new FreeBSD "shadow account" simply follow the simple steps below. You will not be charged a new setup fee for creating a shadow account, nor will you be charged a monthly fee while the account is still a shadow account. This makes the entire upgrade process pain-free cost-wise. You will have 30 days to move your current account to the new shadow account.

Shadow
Simply email support@alts.net stating the account you would like to shadow. Our Customer Service Staff will be informed when you request a shadow account. Typically, this shadow account will be created by the service staff within one day of your request. After the shadow account is created, you will receive a notification via e-mail with the new shadow account IP address and other important information. Read this information carefully. It will assist you greatly in the migration.

Transfer
After the new shadow account is created you will be given 30 days to move all of the files you want to keep from your current BSD/OS Virtual Server to your new FreeBSD Virtual Server shadow account. After you have uploaded your files to your new shadow account, make sure that your new site is working correctly prior to moving on to the next step. Remember that it is fully your responsibility to ensure that you have moved all necessary files to the new shadow account before requesting that the shadow account go live.

Step-By-Step FreeBSD Migration Instructions
The following step-by-step instructions will help you migrate from a BSD/OS Virtual Server to a new FreeBSD Virtual Server.

DNS
At the time that you requested your Virtual Server be shadowed all Virtual Server domains resolved by our name servers had their TTL's (time to live) changed to 0. This will force other name servers to check the authoritative name server each time the domain name is requested, rather than caching it for 24 hours.

The TTL's of domains that are not resolved by our name servers are not changed. You must modify those TTL's yourself. Contact the administrators of the name servers that resolve those domains to request the TTL be changed.

% whois domain.com

In addition, if your domain names are not resolved by our name servers, you will need to contact the administrators of the name servers that resolve your domains when you are ready to test the new Virtual Server and/or when you are ready to go live. Also, make sure that they update the MX (mail) records to point to the new server if your Virtual Server is intended to act as a mail server.

Transferring Content
The following files and directories can be copied directly from your existing BSDI Virtual Server to your new FreeBSD shadow account.

~/etc/sendmail.cf

~/etc/aliases
~/etc/virtmaps
~/etc/spammers
You only need to copy these files if you have actually made changes to them.

~/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs
~/usr/local/etc/httpd/vhosts

~/usr/local/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
It is only recommended that you copy this file directly if your existing BSDi Virtual Server has a single configuration file. If your Virtual Server has ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/conf/srm.conf and ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/conf/access.conf, it is recommended that you do not transfer them, but rather manually re-configure your VirtualHost...a entries and other such configurations on your new FreeBSD Virtual Server.

~/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin
This is the fastest way to setup your scripts on the new machine. However, you should thoroughly test the transferred scripts. For programs such as Shopsite, Miva Merchant, and other shopping carts, the best thing would be to reinstall them on the new machine. If you have custom binaries developed for your server, or other binaries licensed from third-party developers you should check with the developers to make sure that a change in platform will not cause problems, or licensing violations.

NOTE: Do not transfer your Virtual Server password file (~/etc/passwd), unless you know what you are doing. You will need to manually add all of the users to the new shadow account.

To begin, connect to your Virtual Server via telnet or ssh and do the following.

Change to your ~/etc directory and begin an FTP session. Substitute the IP address of your new FreeBSD shadow Virtual Server for SHADOW.IP.ADD.RESS.
```
% cd ~/etc
% ftp SHADOW.IP.ADD.RESS
```
The FTP login is the same as your BSDi Virtual Server. The password will either be blank, if you did not follow the e-mail instructions to set the password, or it will be the password that you set.

Transfer the following files from your ~/etc directory to the new FreeBSD shadow Virtual Server.

ftp cd etc
ftp ascii
ftp put aliases
ftp put virtmaps
ftp put spammers
ftp put sendmail.cf
ftp quit

NOTE: Also when transferring files via FTP you need to make sure that you are transferring them in the correct mode. Text files need to be copied in ASCII mode. While images, compressed files, and other binaries, need to be transfered in binary mode.

Once transfered you will need to telnet to the shadow server and run
```
% vnewaliases
% vnewvirtmaps
% vnewspammers
```
Setup the users on the new FreeBSD shadow account and set mail and FTP settings for each. We recommend that you use the vadduser utility.
You will also want to setup the ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file for your Virtual Subhosts, as well as any custom configuration that existed on the old server. All new accounts are being setup with Apache 1.3. This is specified by the first line of the ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file.
```
#version: 1.3
```

You will then need to transfer your ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs, ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/vhosts, and ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin directories.

NOTE: If you have the FrontPage 2000 Server Extensions installed on your server there is no need to reinstall Frontpage on the new shadow server. Make sure that you copy over the ~/usr/local/frontpage as well. If you have the FrontPage98 or 97 Server Extensions installed, the transfer will be more difficult. The best way to do this is to set up the new users and subhosts under the vhosts directory on the FreeBSD server, transfer the domain name to the new server, and then republish the content to the new FreeBSD server. Any other way has been seen to break the webpage. This will result in slight downtime of the webpage, but is the best way to do it.

On the BSDi Virtual Server
```
% cd ~/usr/local/etc/httpd
```
To zip the ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs, ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/vhosts, and ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin directories use these commands.
```
% zip -r htdocs.zip htdocs
% zip -r vhosts.zip vhosts
% zip -r cgi-bin.zip cgi-bin
```

Once zipped you will want to ftp them to your new Virtual Server.

% ftp SHADOW.IP.ADD.RESS
ftp cd usr/local/etc/httpd
ftp prompt
ftp binary
ftp mput *.zip
ftp quit

NOTE: Depending on the size of the directories this transfer may take a long time. It may appear that the transfer stalls. DO NOT ctrl-c this transfer until you verify that the transfer has stalled. You can do this by telneting to the shadow server, changing to the ~/usr/local/etc/httpd directory, and running ll several times in succession to verify if the zip file being transfered is growing.

You will then need to telnet to the shadow account to unzip them. Once on the new FreeBSD Virtual Server, use the following command.
```
% cd ~/usr/local/etc/httpd
```
Since this is a shadowed server you can remove the ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs, ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/vhosts and ~/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin directory that exists on this server
```
% rm -rf htdocs vhosts cgi-bin
```
To unzip the files use the unzip command
```
% unzip htdocs.zip
% unzip vhosts.zip
% unzip cgi-bin.zip
```

Other content directories that may need to be transfered:

~/usr/ftp/pub
~/usr/local/majordomo/Lists
~/usr/home
~/usr/mail

Once you have uploaded all your content you will want to install any of your 3rd party applications that you could not tar up directly and move over. At this time you will also want to export your databases to the new server. You should consult your database documentation to determine the best way to do this.
You will also need to load the needed modules into your httpd.conf file. If you are using frontpage, or mod_rewrite you will need to add the associated modules to your ~/www/conf/httpd.conf file

Frontpage
LoadModule frontpage_module modules/mod_frontpage.so

mod_rewrite
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
If you are doing subhosting on the server than you will also need to add the following line to your ~/www/conf/httpd.conf file
```
NameVirtualHost YOUR.IP.ADD.RESS
```
If you have any password protected directories on the Virtual Server, you will need to modify the AuthName directive for each of those in the web server configuration file (~/www/conf/httpd.conf). Include double quotation marks around the argument following the directive, like the following.
```
AuthName "User Authentication Manager"
```

Testing
Once you have copied over your content and reinstalled any third party applications you are ready to test the new shadow account. At this time you probably do not want to change all of your domain names to the shadow server.

Go Live
Once you have thoroughly tested your new FreeBSD account, you are ready to make the FreeBSD account live. Simply email us at support@alts.net requesting that your domains be shifted to your shadow account.

NOTE: If your domain names do not list our name servers as the authoritative name servers than you will need to contact the admins of the authoritative name servers in order to make the needed changes to your zonefile.

To determine the authoritative name server telnet to your server and run

% whois domain.name

NOTE: If you do not have your domain name hosted on our name servers you will need to contact the administrators of the name servers that host your domain. Also make sure that they update the MX (mail) records to point to the new server if your virtual server is intended to act as the mail server.

Deshadow
Once you have made the FreeBSD server live via the instructions above AND are totally confident that everything is working properly, you will need to contact our Service Staff to 'deshadow' your account. The deshadowing of the account terminates the old BSDi server and points all domains to the new server (if you haven't already done this yourself). It will also update the database so that the Reseller Backroom shows the new FreeBSD server information and IP address. Deshadowing is NON-reversible. You must request to deshadow your account within 30 days of the account shadow activation date.

YOU SHOULD NOT REQUEST THAT THE ACCOUNT BE DESHADOWED UNTIL YOU ARE CERTAIN THAT YOUR NEW SERVER IS FUNCTIONING PROPERLY. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE TRANSFER OF ALL CONTENT AND TESTING THE NEW SERVER TO MAKE SURE THAT IT FUNCTIONS PROPERLY. Once the account is deshadowed you will not have access to the old BSDi server. You will not be able to revert back to the BSDi server. All data on the BSDi server will be lost. DO NOT deshadow your account until you are assured that the FreeBSD account is functioning properly. We recommend that you point the domain name(s) to the FreeBSD virtual server for several days prior to requesting that the account be deshadowed.

To deshadow an existing shadow account simply Contact Our Customer Service Staff. They will need to know your Reseller ID, account ID and IP address (192.41.XX.XXX) of the shadow account you wish to deshadow.

Last Updated: December 6, 2000

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