Question:

I have an existing DNN site with another hosting provider and I'd like to move it to hosting with 3Essentials... is this possible, and how?

Answer:

Yes, you can move your DNN based site from another hosting provider to 3Essentials with relative ease.  In fact, one of our customers has graciously documented the process as he moved several of his DNN sites to us... here is a copy of his article, reprinted from his site at:

www.mitchelsellers.com

 

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Some of the information below has been reprinted from http://www.mitchelsellers.com/Blogs/tabid/54/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/122/Migration-of-Existing-Site-to-3Essentials.aspx . We have updated the information below to reflect current control panels and available features. Of special note is the HELP link available in the control panels which are very useful, espcially in later versions of the panel.

Recently there have been numerous discussions on the DotNetNuke.com Forums regarding hosting providers and who one should go with and who they should switch to because they are unhappy with their current provider. During all of these discussions I have always recommended the company that I use for hosting 3Essentials. Since making this recommendation I have been receiving numerous e-mails regarding the process to actually migrate a live site over to 3Essentials so I thought I would write a short blog article that explains the basics of moving a website over to 3Essentials, in actuality these instructions SHOULD work for most providers, however ther might be some differences.

The Setup

First you must get your plan setup with 3Essentials so that you have all proper elements available to configure and move your website. Once you have selected your hosting plan and provided them with payment they will send your your needed login information for Plesk and the FTP location.

Before we start the migration process you will want to setup a database instance for your application. You can use the following steps to create this via their website, be sure to remember the database name, username, and password as you will need this information later.

1. Login to Plesk Control Panel
2. Select your domain name from the list
3. Select the "Databases" option
4. Select the "Add" option
5. Supply your desired database name.  Do NOT create the database user/password yet. If you create it now, later you'll be asking us to restore your database that you're migrating from another provider, and that restore will result in the removal of this database user... so hold off on creating that db user at this time.

Now that we have this completed we will want to make a few other settings changes to make sure that our site is completely configured. First under the site settings ensure that the ASP.NET is enabled and that the version selection is set to the appropriate version.. By default, your server is deployed with ASP.Net already enabled.

Note: :

DNN version 7+ requires ASP.net version 4.0 or high.
DNN version 8+ requires ASP.net version 4.5.1 or high.

Once you have verified the .NEt vserion, you will want to configure the correct file permisions for the applicaiton. The IWPD or WPG user will need Modify rights.

3essentials customers on Managed/Customer managed Servers running Plesk 11.x or above have the privilege to set modify privilege on the root folder as well as to restore databases. There is no need for customers to contact 3essentials support to set permissions and restore databases.

To update the file permissions

For Plesk 12.1.x including Plesk 12.5.x: Please see the KB article http://docs.plesk.com/en-US/12.5/customer-guide/websites-and-domains/website-content/setting-file-and-directory-access-permissions.70738/

For Plesk 11.5.x: please see the KB article http://knowledge.3essentials.com/web-hosting/article/2221/HOW-To-Edit-Folder-and-File-Permissions-in-Plesk-11-and-12.html .

For Plesk 9.x and older:  If you are on an older platform with Plesk 9.x or earlier, we strongly recommend purchasing a new hosting plan so that you have the latest hosting technologies available with the latest security updates. Trying to bring over a new website or recently developed website to an older platform may be challenging and limit your ability to upgrade your site. 3Essentials is always updating our server builds and hosting plans. Please check our site for current plans.

If you are on a Managed server with Plesk 9.x or older but are not ready to upgrade your hosting plan, submit a support request to 3Essentials. In this support request we will ask for them to confirm the permissions for the root directory. Please follow the below steps to submit this request. Unmanaged/Customer managed server customers can modify the file permissions themselves.

1. Visit their help site at help.3essentials.com
2. Click on "Submit a Ticket"
3. Select "Support" for the group, then click "Next"
4. Enter your domain name in the box provided
5. Enter "ASP.NET Modify Permissions" as the subject
6. Enter "Please add MODIFY permissions to the IUSR/IWPD users to the ROOT directory for this domain" as the body of the message  (NOTE: if not installing to the root they only need to change permissions on the actual DNN folder)
7. Click "Send" to submit the message

Once they have confirmed this setting you are now ready to start the migration process!

 

Preparing the Existing Site

Now that you have your new environment all ready to go it is now time to get the existing environment ready for migration. Typically you will want to notify your users of the move as when you start the actual move process changes to the current site will not transition.

From your current hosting provider you need to obtain a backup of the SQL Server database in the form of a .bak file. Once you have this you will need to restore the database using your Plesk control panel.

NOTE: Your MSSQL backups should be in the .BAK format.

To Restore a database:

For Plesk 12.5.x:

For plesk version 12.5, please refer the KB below on how to restore databases. For Plesk 12.1.x please see the section on that.

http://docs.plesk.com/en-US/12.5/customer-guide/advanced-website-databases/exporting-and-importing-database-dumps.69538/

 

For Plesk 12.1.x:

Go to Plesk panel >> Websites & Domains >> Backup Manager ( on top right) >> More actions >> Database Backup Repository
Click Upload Database Backup File.
Select the database name from the drop down.
Select the backup file from your computer.
Enable "Restore database backup immediately upon uploading"
Click OK

 

For Plesk 11.5.x:

Go to the Websites & Domains tab
Click on Backup Manager..
Click on Select Database Backup Repository.
Select Database from the list.
Click on Upload Backup File
Click Browse Button
Select to .bak file from local computer to upload the same.
Click OK.
Click on Restore.

 

For Plesk 9.x and older:  If you are on an older platform with Plesk 9.x or earlier, we strongly recommend purchasing a new hosting plan so that you have the latest hosting technologies available with the latest security updates. Trying to bring over a new website or recently developed website to an older platform may be challenging and limit your ability to upgrade your site. 3Essentials is always updating our server builds and hosting plans. Please check our site for current plans.

If you are on a Managed server with Plesk 9.x or older but are not ready to upgrade your hosting plan, submit a support request to 3Essentials.to have this database restored to the new location. Instructions for the ticket submission are below.

1. Visit their help site at help.3essentials.com
2. Click on "Submit a Ticket"
3. Select "Support" for the group, then click "Next"
4. Select "High" for the priority
5. Enter your domain name in the box provided
6. Enter "Restore Database" as the subject
7. Enter "Please restored this database file to my existing database (Database name, username, password)." as the body, providing the actual values for the database you created above
8. In the attachments section you will want to attach your database to the ticket
9. Click "Send" to submit the message

Once they have confirmed that the database has been restored, then you can proceed to the final steps:

1. Log back into your control panel and create a database user.  The database username should be different than any user you might have created previously for connecting to the database.  If you're curious as to why, read on:
   • Short answer: It won't work.  It must be a DB user that didn't exist in the DB before.
   • Long answer: This is because a database user in SQL Server actually consists of a SQL Login and a matching DB user, and each has a SID which is sync'ed between the users.  If you create user "bob" for the database on our system, and "bob" aready existed in the database from where you hosted the database last, you end up with a SQL Login "bob" with a SID from our system, and a DB user "bob" with a SID from your previous host... they aren't in sync... end result, you can't use "bob" to connect to the database.  So if you had a db user "bob" at your last provider where you had this database, simply create the db user as "bob1" or "bobanything" or simply anything other than "bob".
2. Download ALL website contents from your existing server. When you do this you must be sure to grab all files, be careful of potential FTP download issues. Once you have the files downloaded to your computer you will need to then modify the database configuration in your web.config.  To perform these changes you will need to replace both connection strings with the new information for 3Essentials which include the database name, username, and password as well as their database server name. With regard to what the database server name is:
   • For shared hosting, ask the support team for the MSSQL server name for your hosting account as it may vary depending on which server you are hosted on.
   • For Dedicated Managed or Virtual Managed customers, assuming your plan included MSSQL, then (local) or localhost would be the database server name. If you use (local) please note the parentheses should be included.

Load Files and Make the Change

Now that you have modified the files on your local machine you will need to simply FTP them to 3Essentials and you will be set to go. When you connect to the 3Essentials FTP servers you will need to go to the httpdocs folder and then upload your site to that folder. Even though via the FTP it is a sub-folder it is actually the ROOT directory for the website. Be very careful when uploading to ensure that all files do successfully transfer.

You may now test your DNN site on 3Essentials before making the DNS change by modifying your hosts file on your local machine to point to the temporary URL.  Luckily 3Essentials has provided a document on how to make this change.  http://knowledge.3essentials.com/web-hosting/article/213/What-is-a-HOSTS-file-and-how-do-you-edit-it.html.  I have also been informed by 3Essentials that if you have any questions regarding what this hosts entry should be that you can simply submit a support ticket and they will gladly confirm the proper setting. 

Once you have the files up on the server and you have validated that the site is ready to go you can now make the DNS change to move your existing domain over to your new hosting plan. Please remember that DNS changes can take up to 72 hours to complete propagation across the world so some users might still get to your old site after you make the changes.