Copy an Account from Another Server with Account Password

Overview

This interface attempts to copy a cPanel account from a remote server with a non-root password. To migrate a non-cPanel account to cPanel & WHM, follow the directions in our How to Manually Migrate Accounts to cPanel & WHM from Unsupported Control Panels documentation.

How to transfer a single account

Security

In this section of the interface, select whether to use the Restricted Restore feature or to copy reseller privileges.

Restricted Restore

The Restricted Restore feature performs additional security checks on the backup file in order to mitigate the risk of transfers from unfamiliar sources. If a component of the backup file has an issue (for example, a MySQL grant table is compromised or a symbolic link attached), the system will not restore that portion of the backup and will add a warning to the log file.

If you do not trust the source of the account backup with root access to your server, use the Restricted Restore feature to protect your server.

Warnings about the Restricted Restore feature

If you use the Restricted Restore feature, be advised that:

• When you restore an account with this feature, the system may leave behind unnecessary account data. This can cause conflicts and leave the account in a broken state. You must remove the account then restore it without using the Restricted Restore feature.
• This feature will not restore parked (aliased) or addon domains.
• This feature only allows restored accounts to use noshell or jailshell environments. If the restored account uses another shell, the system will set the account to use noshell environment.
• If you use this feature to restore an account that contains PostgreSQL® databases, the target server must use PostgreSQL version 8.4 or newer.

Settings

In this section of the interface, specify information about the server that currently hosts the account. To do this, perform the following steps:

1. In the Server to copy from text box, enter the IP address or fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of the remote server.
   • FQDN example — host.example.com
     Note:

     • The FQDN does not require the trailing dot.
     • You must enter FQDN’s in lowercase letters.
       
   • IP address example — 127.0.0.1
2. In the Username to copy text box, enter the username that owns the site.
3. In the User’s password text box, enter the user’s password.
4. To give the account a dedicated IP address on the target server, select the Give new account an ip address checkbox.

Copy Account

After you make your selections, click Copy Account to begin the transfer process. The Account Transfer interface (WHM >> Home >> Transfers >> Account Transfer) will appear.

About streaming transfers

When you use WHM to copy an account from another server, the system automatically queries the remote server to determine whether streaming is a viable option. Streaming provides a faster and less resource-intensive transfer of accounts between cPanel & WHM servers. The streaming process occurs as follows:

1. The pkgacct utility packages and transfers the account without the home directory on the remote server.
2. During account restoration, the target server retrieves the home directory.
3. The target server copies the home directory via a network connection directly from the remote server.

To enable streaming transfers, the following statements must be true:

• The target server must connect to the remote server via port 2086 (or port 2087 if you prefer to use SSL).
• The user who begins the transfer must have root-level privileges on the remote server’s WHM interface.

Compatibility issues

Because of changes to the backup system and other system features (for example, Horde), several compatibility issues exist in the restoration process.

MySQL and PostgreSQL database passwords

In cPanel & WHM version 11.42 and later, the system restores MySQL® and PostgreSQL databases to the account. However, the system does not restore the user’s password and it locks the user out of the databases.

To refresh the user’s privileges and restore access, the user must navigate to cPanel’s phpPgAdmin interface (cPanel >> Home >> Databases >> phpPgAdmin) or cPanel’s phpMyAdmin interface (cPanel >> Home >> Databases >> phpMyAdmin). When the user accesses either interface, the system refreshes the user’s privileges and restores access.

Horde

In cPanel & WHM version 11.50 and later, Horde SQLite database backups are not backwards compatible. For example, you cannot restore a Horde database backup that you created with cPanel & WHM version 11.52 to an installation of cPanel & WHM version 11.50.

Backups do not include some global Horde files. For more information, read our Backup Tarball Contents and Guide to Horde Data Behavior documentation.