If you need to move a WordPress site from a cPanel host to Opalstack:
- Log in to your Opalstack control panel at https://my.opalstack.com/ and make a note of your server hostname (eg opal1.opalstack.com).
- Create a new shell user: https://docs.opalstack.com/user-guide/shell-users/#adding-a-shell-user
- Create a new WordPress app: https://docs.opalstack.com/user-guide/applications/#adding-an-application
- Go to https://my.opalstack.com/logs/ and make a note of the new shell user credentials.
- Also at https://my.opalstack.com/logs/ make a note of the MariaDB database credentials for your new WordPress database.
- Use your cPanel Backup Wizard to create a full backup using "Secure Copy (SCP)" as the destination.
- Use the following settings for the SCP backup destination:
- Host: your server hostname
- User: your shell user name (just the username, not the "@" part)
- Password: your shell user password
- Wait for the backup to complete. When it is done the file will be stored on your Opalstack server at
/home/your_shell_user/backup-MM.DD.YYYY_HH-MM-SS_username.zip
.
- Log in to a SSH session on your Opalstack server using your shell user credentials: https://docs.opalstack.com/user-guide/server-access/#ssh-access
- Unzip the archive by running the following command:
unzip ~/backup-MM.DD.YYYY_HH-MM-SS_username.zip
- Import your database using the following command:
mysql -p -u your_dbuser your_db < ~/backup-MM.DD.YYYY_HH-MM-SS_username/mysql/your_old_db.sql
- Move your WordPress files into place with the following commands (note "www" may be different depending on the site you are moving, the goal is to move the WordPress files for whatever site):
rm -rf ~/apps/your_wp_app/*
mv ~/backup-MM.DD.YYYY_HH-MM-SS_username/homedir/www/* ~/apps/your_wp_app/
- Create a domain or subdomain to use to test the site: https://docs.opalstack.com/user-guide/domains/#adding-domains
Note that we provide free subdomains that you can use for this purpose: https://docs.opalstack.com/user-guide/domains/#free-opalstackedcom-subdomains
- Create a site to serve the WordPress app (on our platform a "site" is a mapping of domains to apps): https://docs.opalstack.com/user-guide/sites/#adding-sites
- When you're ready to point the domain at Opalstack proceed to the next steps.
- Create your mailboxes and email addresses: https://docs.opalstack.com/user-guide/email/
- Create any extra DNS records you need: https://docs.opalstack.com/user-guide/domains/#adding-dns-records-manually
Note that if you are using Opalstack's web and email services exclusively then you won't need to create any additional DNS records on our end, we'll manage those automatically behind the scenes.
Also note that if you are using external name servers like your registrar or Cloudflare then you will need to create several additional DNS records there for your Opalstack email services: https://docs.opalstack.com/user-guide/domains/#records-for-your-email
- Point your domain at Opalstack: https://docs.opalstack.com/user-guide/domains/#pointing-your-domain-at-opalstack
- Wait for DNS to propagate and for mail to stop arriving at your old host (if you're using our email).
- When that's all done, notify our support team and we will import your old email messages into your new Opalstack mailboxes.
You'll need to repeat steps 3-5 and 11-20 for each additional site in the archive.
Once that's done you should be fully migrated and can cancel service at your old host.