CooliceHost offers free migration assistance of your websites to one of our hosting plans. We know that changing hosting does not have to be a hard and stressful process, so we do our best to give you a hand with the whole process.
Keep in mind that you should consider to move 4 most important elements of your hosting account: files, databases, SSL (this is not so important if it's not paid) and emails. You also have to change name servers of your domain. Also make sure to setup all of your setting old setting to your new hosting - the same PHP version in DirectAdmin, as it was in cPanel, as well as other specific options. If forgot them your application will probably not function correctly.
Migrating Your Files.
This part of the migration process is the easiest one, moving all files of your website. Default location of website files in cPanel is /domain.com, /public_html or /public_html/domain.com and default location in DirectAdmin is /domains/domain.com/public_html. All we have to do here is to move all files from the old hosting account to your new one. We can do it in 2 ways.
First one is to simply use FTP client (For example: Filezilla, CoreFTP, WinSCP, Cyberduck, Transmit) and download all files from the cPanel to your local PC, and then upload them to DirectAdmin. Here you need to be patient, because this process takes long time if there are a lot of files, and it is very important to use binary mode in your FTP client.
Second one is kind of faster action and recommended by many. In this case we use the Files Manager apps in cPanel and DirectAdmin. Your fist step is to create zip archive of all your files in cPanel, this can be done by clicking “Backup” in main window of cPanel and then “Home Directory” under Download a Home Directory Backup, or just go to “File Manager”, right clicking on your website directory (for username /public_html/domain.com) and selecting “Compress/Archive”, which will create zip file (or another type of archive file – tar.gz) of your files.
Now You have to upload that file to /domains/domain.com/public_html by FTP or control panel File Manager in DirectAdmin hosting.
After the transfer is done, next is to go to File Manager in DirectAdmin, find the location of your .zip file and click Extract (with the rigth button of your mouse – a menu should display), which should be next to other actions like copy or rename. In next window just confirm extraction, after that, all files should be visible in /domains/domain.com/public_html directory.
Make sure that there are only website files. Now you have the chance to get rid of all the files you don’t need. This way you will save extra storage and make your account as clean as possible. Have in mind, that unused and obsolete script files can be a breach in your defence.
Migrating databases
Not all websites use databases, but most of the CMSs and other dynamic websites do, like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla. Or most popular open source shopping carts like Opencart, Magento, WooCommerce (which is basically WordPress), Prestashop, Zen Cart, osCommerce.
In order to migrate your databases, you should download them first from your cPanel hosting account to your local PC. Here are also 2 way to do it.
The first option is to go to “Backup” app in your control panel – cPanel Dashboard and then under “Download a MySQL Database Backup” click database that you want to download.
The second option is by going to phpMyAdmin, click “Export”, click “Custom”, select the database you want to transfer (find “Compression” option and select “zipped” if you prefer that way to do it) and click “Go”.
Database is downloaded now. If you don't know which database your website uses, you can easily check in the config file of your web-based application. WordPress holds its database details in the be wp-config.php placed on the root directory.
Next, login to your DirectAdmin hosting account, go to “MySQL Management”, “Create new Database”. Fill out all necessary fields to in order to create your new database: Database Name and Database Username is user_db1 and password: pass123@. Note that this is only an example here, you have to choose proper name and much complicated password (the application has database password generator, which you can use for this purpose).
Return to “MySQL Management”, under “Upload a Database Backup” and next to “Select Database” select database you just created, in the given example it is user_db1.
Select the file, find zip file that you have downloaded from your old cPanel account and click “Upload”. If it fails, you can also try to import database in phpMyAdmin. Just login to phpMyAdmin go to, “Import” and select database file – again the same one.
After you do all the steps above, your database should be already imported. Now is the moment to connect your database with your website by changed database name, user and password. You must find config file of your CMS or other dynamic website, remember WordPress has wp-config.php as well as Joomla configuration.php and Drupal sites/default/settings.php file.
The other CMSs have their own config files and by reading their documentations, you will easily get use to them. You must edit the values of these parameters (placing the new ones). Our example was: database name and user name is user_db1 and password is pass123@.
Migrating emails
Transferring emails is very similar to transferring files of your website, but with a few differences you need to know and will about to get you familiar with.
First you need to do is to create exactly same email ([email protected]) in DirectAdmin as it is in your cPanel account. Here we will give and example with email [email protected]. You can also use the same password if you want.
Let's say that you have already created your email in your control panel. Now you need to go to https://domain.com/roundcube/ and login to your newly created email, this creates directory structure of your email on DirectAdmin host. You can see the email folder in the Imap directory.
In our example of [email protected], all emails files in cPanel are stored in /mail/domain.com/info directory, and for DirectAdmin it will be /imap/domain.com/info/Maildir.
We have to do move those files and directories from old location to the new one. Here we can use FTP for this process (just remember to use binary mode) or by you File Manager (DirectAdmin control panel). The metrology is the same as we already mentioned at first chapter - “Migrating files” of this article.
When you transfer all your files it is very important to delete all files starting with dovecot on DirectAdmin hosting, this will force dovecot to rebuild it's index and after that we will see all our emails on new account.
Name Servers (DNS) and SSL
After all of your data is migrated: files, databases and emails. You have to change name servers of your domain to dns1.coolicehost.com and dns1.coolicehost.com. This option is in your domain registrant, where you have registered your domain name.
When the domain propagation finishes (in most situations after few hours), you will have to install SSL certificate for your domain, because without it https will not work as it should be.
That's all of the migration process. Your websites and emails should be working now on your new DirectAdmin hosting. Of course there might be a problems during the migration, and that's why we are here to assist you. All you need to do is to submit a ticket and our technical team will get bask to you ASAP.
