Othello::Hosts CPanel software downgrade

[othelloRob]

Due to the number of problems being raised on the CPanel11 platform, and the lack of official fixes coming in a timely fashion, reseller servers CPanel1 and Cpanel2 will need to be downgraded to version 10.9 until 11.0 is brought up to the high standards needed.

(switching back to X2 from X3 as the default skin)

Sadly there is no simple way to downgrade, so we are having to take the following steps to fix the package manager, ssl certificate manager, and apache (web server) problems:

1. install new machine with cpanel 10.8/FC6
2. configure all applications as per setup on cpanel1 & cpanel2
3. stop all incoming emails
4. stop all mysql databases
5. stop all postgresql databases
6. stop all ftp access
7. package up accounts on old servers
8. switch ip adresses
9. unpack accounts on new server
10. restart stopped services

This is a large undertaking, so we will be doing it IP address at a time, in order to minimise disruption. Sadly there will be downtime noticed by people unable to pickup mail, or access dynamic database driven sites while their data is being archived on one platform and restored to the new one.

Your clients might also receieve some automated emails about their account setup during the process, these can safely be ignored, as once teh downgrade is complete everything will work exactly as before.

If we dont do this downgrade we are forced to keep manually editting internal config files every time someone makes a change in the reseller control panel (whm) and manually restart processes, which will mean intermittent and regular downtime, far more likely to disrupt the end clients.

We expect to work overnight on this for the next 6 days, wraping up by 8am each morning, just in time for the working day to start.

[Roger]

Thanks for the explanation. Do I infer that your intention to complete work by 8am didn't work out this morning? I have a client who is unable to get his mail via webmail, when I log on to his and other cPanel accounts I see

[an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive]

Is this in hand or should I raise a ticket against it?

[Roger]

A further update: webmail is now working but the Horde blacklist/whitelist were empty. cPanel access still giving error messages.

[othelloRob]

Originally Posted by Roger

Thanks for the explanation. Do I infer that your intention to complete work by 8am didn't work out this morning? I have a client who is unable to get his mail via webmail, when I log on to his and other cPanel accounts I see

Is this in hand or should I raise a ticket against it?

A few sites didnt unpack correctly which took us about 90 mins past our original estimate of time.

If you are seeing any ongoing problems, please raise a support ticket with the appropriate details to be investigated

[Roger]

This is still a fluid situation, but at present I seem to have no outstanding issues. However, as a consequence of the downgrade all of my accounts reverted to the default disk space and bandwidth for their package, resulting in a number (those whose allocation I had increased from the default) in going over quota on disk space. Fortunately, it being the start of the month, none has bust the bandwidth quota. But being over quota on disk space resulted in some heart-stopping moments for clients who tried to view their email via webmail and saw nothing there. There were probably other incidents, I would not be surprised to hear that some emails have bounced.

I have now reset the disk space quotas. If you have similar problems you might like to do the same.

[othelloRob]

Originally Posted by Roger

However, as a consequence of the downgrade all of my accounts reverted to the default disk space and bandwidth for their package

WHM allows you to modify an account which is tied to a package and adjust the space, transfer, email acconts, ftp accounts, databases, theme etc

These adjustments are short-term alterations, and will be reset to the package details eventually.

To permamently alter an account, you should make a new package with the new settings.

[Roger]

Originally Posted by othelloRob

These adjustments are short-term alterations, and will be reset to the package details eventually.

Thanks for the information, I had not realised that, I had been working on the basis that the packages were a starting point from which I could make adjustments. I will be introducing appropriate packages in the near future.

Roger

[Roger]

I now have an explanation, and a solution, for this error message which I continued to get:

[an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive]

This was because as noted in the original post, the default skin (or theme) has been changed from x3 to x2 and, crucially, the x3 theme does not exist on the current cPanel setup. Accounts where I had this were ones where the theme remained as x3. I had to change this manually to x2 (editing the package did not apply the change across all accounts with that package).

Anyhow, all sorted now but it did take a couple of hours work at this end.

I had an incident, fortunately as far as I can tell just one account, where all the email forwarding disappeared and had to be re-input manually. Not raised as a ticket since I sorted it myself, but if anyone at Othello knows why this should be so (it was user thecwa) I'd be interested to know.

[Roger]

I notice that my WHM skin looks different, and that (from the changelog) WHM was upgraded on May 9th. Is this the start of upgrading cPanel or is that still some way off?

[othelloRob]

Originally Posted by Roger

I notice that my WHM skin looks different, and that (from the changelog) WHM was upgraded on May 9th. Is this the start of upgrading cPanel or is that still some way off?

We still are waiting on a few fixes, but in the main CP11 is ready for rolling out again. Probably at the weekend.