Notice: WebFaction accounts that can’t get migrated will be cancelled in 4 days.
⚠️ If you haven’t started migrating yet you can’t wait any longer. ⚠️
Here’s exactly what you need to do to keep your websites and email working while you migrate.
Step 1 — Get an archive created
Email support@webfaction.com from the email addressed attached to your account send them this making sure you replace ‘accountname’ with your account name:
Subject: Please provide an archive of my account 'accountname'.
Hi WebFactioneers,
Can you please provide an archive for my account 'accountname'?This archive will copy all of your email and exports of your databases into your account’s home folder. This is a good way to get a complete backup of your entire account that you can then copy to Opalstack, your local computer, or preferably both.
Note that they are exports from when the the WebFaction team creates your account archive. Meaning email or data that gets added after the archive is created won’t be in there.
Step 2 — Sign up for an Opalstack account
Sign up for an account here: https://my.opalstack.com/signup/. If your WebFaction archive is less than 50G then you should sign up for the Value Stack plan. If it’s more than 50G you should sign up for the Single Stack plan. All of the Shared plans can be upgraded/downgraded in place so start with the smallest plan you can.
If you already have an account move to Step 3.
Step 3 — Start the migration process
For your apps and databases you can follow the steps here:
https://community.opalstack.com/d/155-howto-migrate-stuff-automatically-from-webfaction
You can copy your email addresses and mailboxes over using our mail migration tools, follow the steps here:
If you want to copy your WebFaction archive to Opalstack you can do it like this:
- Log into your Opalstack server as the shell user you created by following this guide: https://help.opalstack.com/article/14/ssh-access
- ⚠️ If you have a lot of files then it can take a while to transfer everything so we suggest running the following commands in screen. You’ll need to replace accountname and webNNN with your WebFaction account name and server number.
screen #you'll see a new login session appearrsync -Paz --exclude='~/logs' accountname@webNNN.webfaction.com:~ ~/wf_backup/
Step 4 — Get your apps, sites, and email working again
With any major migration there are going to be some problems that have to be worked through.
⚠️ Don’t Panic! ⚠️
Paths might need to be changed, usernames/passwords may need to be updated, dependencies need to be installed, and a dozen other small changes that will have to happen before everything is working correctly again.
You’ll be able to see the errors in your log files ~/logs/ and track down the causes and fixes as you go. If you get stuck our support team can help — but keep in mind we’re dealing with the huge influx of people in the exact same spot you are.