[BlueOnyx:18704] Verio ControlPanel -> BlueOnyx 5209R migrator (GMU)

[Michael Stauber]

Hi all,

I'd like to announce a little side-project I've been working on. It is
called "BlueOnyx General Migration Utility" (or short: "GMU").

The end-goal is to provide migration paths from several non-BlueOnyx
servers to BlueOnyx. So we're looking towards eventually providing the
ability to migrate from other solutions (think "Plesk" or "cPanel") to
BlueOnyx. But also from general Linux/Unix/BSD hosting solutions as long
as they meet certain criteria. Such as Email via Sendmail, traditional
*NIX user accounting via passwd and/or PAM and use the Apache webserver.

The first step of this project has been completed and we now have a
functional solution that allows a clear, precise and working migration
path from Verio ControlPanel (on both FreeBSD and CentOS 4) to BlueOnyx
5209R.

GMU comes in two components: An export script that is run on the server
from which you want to migrate. The exporter for the Verio CP servers is
ready. Scripts custom tailored to handle other CP's will be provided
later on. If you do have a server from which you eventually want to
migrate and are willing to let me take a peek to create an export
script, then please let me know.

The exporter parses the configuration files and system settings on the
export server and generates and XML with the configuration of Vsites,
User accounts, autoresponders, forwardings, email aliases and such. It
also generates the Tarballs that contain the Vsite directories, Email
data such as mbox or MailDir and all data from the user accounts.

The second part is the importer, which is a general script that is
supposed to handle all exports that conform to the expected standard.

This import script is named /usr/sausalito/sbin/blueonyx-import.pl and
is provided by the RPM "blueonyx-gmu" on 5209R.

This script parses the XML and can either restore just the configuration
of Vsites and Users, or can restore Resellers, Vsites, Users and all
their data. This also handles conversion from Maildir to mbox format,
quota adjustments and making sure the correct PHP settings are applied.

The full documentation of GMU is available in the BlueOnyx Wiki and it
includes download locations, installation- and usage instructions:

http://wiki.blueonyx.it/info/devel/gmu

Certainly someone will ask: "Will GMU eventually replace CMU?"

The answer to that is: It will supplement it. We have no plans to retire
CMU and CMU with remain a fully supported migration path between
BlueOnyx servers (and also from Cobalt and BlueQuartz boxes to BlueOnyx).

However: We all do know that CMU is a clunker. A precioussssss one at
best and although it gets the job done? It could do it better.

GMU will eventually be able to perform BlueOnyx to BlueOnyx migrations
as well. And I expect that it will handle BlueOnyx to BlueOnyx
migrations about 8-10x faster than CMU and with a lot less issues.

One of the reasons for the slowness of CMU is the usage of the
Archive::Tar Perl module for packing and unpacking of Tarballs. I first
used this in GMU as well and it was as slow as CMU. Then I found a way
that's a lot more efficient and with that it just wheezed through
packing and unpacking as if on steroids. Porting that back to CMU is not
feasible, so we will rather extend GMU to deal with BlueOnyx to BlueOnyx
migrations as well.

This will then also be able to migrate DNS records on the fly (without
extra roundtrips) and we will have the ability to migrate settings for
system services and application settings (like the settings of the
AV-SPAM or other third party applications).

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber