Seamlessly Change Hosting to Hostek.com

Plan ahead as much as possible.

Make sure your customers are well informed of any possible service inturruption and changes they should consider well in advance.

your-provider to Hostek.com Windows VPS

• We recommend setting up each domain using WCP as you move them, not all at one time. Doing so ensures there are less complications with mail delivery between two domains.

Moving Domains

Familiarize yourself and your team with our Windows Control Panel. If you have any questions please ask our support team.

1. Create the domain using the "addon domain" icon in the WCP.
   • When initially logging into WCP the domain which was used for referencing your VPS will be listed and new domains added.
   • If you selected a database server be installed locally or remotely it should be integrated with your control panel and databases can be added under each domain using the appropriate Icon.
   • Note if you ordered the FREE SmarterMail edition which only includes mail for a single domain, upon adding your second domain you may encounter an error. If so contact support for upgrading your SmarterMail license or disabling the action for adding new domains to the mail server.
2. DNS zones are automatically created for new domains, for the name servers which are used for domains added to your VPS click on the "Site Details" icon within the WCP for the domain in question.
3. Copy files to your VPS. Use FTP directly from your VPS to transfer site files, this is extremely fast and efficient.
4. Test the domain. Each domain will have a "Testing URL" within the "Site Details" area of WCP, note that if the database is not moved over and or DSN not created you may encounter errors.
5. Prepare the DNS for moving. Before switching your DNS we suggest a shorter TTL such as 300 (5 minutes), after this change you must wait out the original TTL before the new value will take affect. For example if your original TTL was 7200 seconds (2 hours) you must wait 2 hours after submitting any change before the new TTL will be take effect.
6. Switch your DNS. By now your site is tested and you're ready to make the switch.
   • In most cases we suggest moving the database first so data will be consistent from the old location to the new.

SSL

• Our Windows Control Panel has provisions for creating a CSR and installing a new certificate but you cannot "import" an existing certificate. There are two ways to resolve "moving" a certificate to a Windows server easily.

Pkey format

1. Export the certificate in PKey format. Within the certificate manager, export the current certificate in PKey format, you will be asked for a "passphrase" assign one and remember it.
2. Copy the certificate to the new server.
3. Open IIS on your VPS, open the main server node then click on the icon "Server Certificates" found under >> IIS >> Server Certificates.
4. Click import and follow the prompts.
5. Edit the bindings for the specific site to assign the certificate
   • Right click on the website in Sites >> your-website.abc select "Edit Bindings".
   • Select "Add" change the type to https, select the IP Address, select the "SSL Certificate" from the drop down.

Re-key the certificate

• Using this method could render the SSL certificate expired on the old server.

1. Click on the "Dedicated SSL" icon in WCP.
2. Fill in the appropriate information to generate a CSR.
3. At your certificate provider request a "rekey" using the CSR provided from WCP.
4. After receiving the new certificate back from your provider, complete the installation in WCP.

Databases

MSSQL

1. Add the database and user in MSSQL using the WCP under the correct domain.
2. Set the database to single user mode on the new server.

   • USE database_name ALTER DATABASE [DB_NAME_HERE] SET SINGLE_USER WITH NO_WAIT

3. Using SQL Studio Manager restore from backup selecting the file you exported from your previous server.
4. Set the database to multi user mode on the new server.

   • USE database_name ALTER DATABASE [DB_NAME_HERE] SET MULTI_USER WITH NO_WAIT

5. To fix user a created user which existed before the database was restored.

   • USE database_name Exec sp_change_users_login 'auto_fix','USERNAME'

Don't forget

• Scheduled tasks, add them on the new server remove them from the old.
• Change the DNS TTL back to default.

Why move one at a time?

Say you setup domain X, Y, and Z via WCP, then migrate X from your old server to Hostek. If a user on X tries to email someone on domain Y or Z they'll get a kickback saying "No such user." This is because you haven't migrated the data over into these other accounts yet. The server will try to send the message locally before it goes "outside" to resolve it's IP address. Setting up new domains "as you go", will avoid this possibility.

If mail is not involved in the migration, then you may not need to worry about this issue.