Just wondering, how are people handling migrations from cPanel to iWorx clutsters? By this, I mean, do users transfer site by site, and then need to edit anything (shared or reseller), or is it done automatically by iWorx?
I expect the only thing that requires any editing would be dns zones and mysql settings in scripts, but just wondering…
Also, can we now compile php in iworx? Or is it still a manual process?
Edit : What is being clustered/HA? Only web, or can each email (each pop/smtp/imap) connection also be in HA?
What happens if the main node where files reside becomes full (let’s assume a SAN for now), do we need to create, manage and deploy a second cluster, or can we add a second file storage server, and tell iWorx which servers have access to that one?
With cPanel, you can actually just point the InterWorx mass-migration tool at the cPanel box, and let InterWorx pull the sites over for you. There’s additional complexity, of course (making sure the IPs are right so DNS keeps working, changing the nameservers of the domain if necessary, etc) but it works pretty well. Works best with cPanel 11, but 10 is supported also.
As long as the cPanel box connected to “localhost” and the new one does, you’ll generally be ok with the import, at least from cPanel 11. With cPanel 10, the MySQL user name definitely changes. There’s also the possibility of a collision with names already on the new system, so that could cause you to need to edit connection information also.
Compiling PHP is still a manual process. We do provide some newer RPMs in our unsupported repo, if you’re interested.
Our clustering solution is NOT HA. It’s meant primarily to assist in scaling performance. Email and web are both clustered.
You would need to deploy a second cluster OR do something tricksy with mount points. I’d recommend deploying a second cluster if upgrading the storage capacity isn’t a possibility.
Thank you for the answers. Hypothetically, if I set iWorx (3 servers) to work as round-robin, and one server goes down (and I can’t get to it quickly), would roughly “2/3” the requests go to the working servers (mail or dns or web)
As well, when compiling PHP/Apache, does this need to be done on each server individually, or will it work if I do it on just one, and its changes propagate?
Well, here’s where the “we’re not HA” really kicks you
It’ll work like that - as long as the one that goes down isn’t the load balancer. As long as the load balancer stays up, you’d be fine, and 100% of the requests would (try to) go to the remaining two servers.
PHP/Apache need to be maintained per server, there’s no propagation of settings. MySQL is hosted on the master node, so there’s no need to worry about it on the nodes.
Everything sounds good. Last bits are just for confirmation : email accounts, and the emails within them (and passwords) from migrations remain intact, correct? MySQL and Web are easy to migrate, but email… not so much.
Also, since mail will be round robin also, does each server have its own exim configuration, and will mail come from each server’s public IP, or just the main load balancer IP?
I also noticed the huge update to the API (yay!)… can I safely say that all the functions a reseller or shared user will use are in the API now?
One last bit also, let’s assume a busy forum… what will be used more… the SQL server, or the web server(clustered)?
The email situation depends on the version of cPanel you’re migrating from. The importer for 10 is much less complete than the importer for 11. Also, it depends on the mail system used in cPanel - most use the Maildir format, which we can import without issue, but some seem to use mbox, which I don’t think is supported fully.
Regarding exim - I asked one of the higher guys about this and his response was “Exim? Does he mean qmail? Each server has its own configuration, the mail comes from each server’s IP, though it can be configured to send from the cluster manager if he wants” Does that answer your question?
The API is huge for us in 4.0 - the web interface is really just a client of the API, so yes, it’s pretty safe to say that. There are a few holes - the .htaccess section for example, but 98% of actions are covered.
In a busy forum…well, it’d depend on the forum. I’d guess MySQL. Also, just from experience, client MySQL code tends to be less efficient than client PHP, so if you’re asking trying to decide how large of a system to use…
