Server Migration

Generic information

Over the course of the coming months, we'll perform a migration of all customers from the servers server8, server9, server10, server11, server12, server13, server14, server15, and server16 to new infrastructure.

Over the years we've grown and we've reached the point where investing directly in our own equipment and colocating it makes sense. This allows us to standardize on the hardware we use while also allowing for upgrading hardware such as disk space down the road without requiring migrations.

We're doing migrations in two primary batches, we start with servers ranging from server8 to server12, and the second batch from server13 to server16 at the beginning of 2021.

Our hardware will be delivered at a local datacenter the coming Thursday (August 13), we'll perform the actual setup in the datacenter Friday, August 14, and plan on the migrations to start Wednesday, August 26.

We migrate one server at a time, usually spanning 2-4 days depending on the number/size of customers on a given server.

Migrations generally start at 8.15pm every evening. There will be a short downtime during the migration. The amount of downtime mainly depends on the size of your databases.

You can check your migration date (and possible time) on https://migration.hosting4real.net/login - simply log in using your credentials for https://shop.hosting4real.net/ 

Backups from the old system will be kept 14 days after migrations have been completed. Since the servers are new, it also means the files able for restoration for you as a customer will "reset". If you need backups restored from the old system to the new system, you'll have to contact the support for this to be fulfilled.

Customers with external DNS

You're getting allocated a specific timeslot where your migration will happen. This allows for less downtime since you know exactly when to update your DNS.

We advise that you lower the TTL to somewhere between 60 and 360 seconds for DNS records - this lowers the time it takes for DNS to switch over.

Ideally, you can make use of our DNS servers (ns1.dk, ns2.dk, ns3.dk and ns4.dk), so the migration happens automatically, and doesn't require any manual intervention from you.

Migrations will be performed no later than the date informed on migration.hosting4real.net unless explicitly postponed by us. Failure to act if you're using external DNS will result in extensive downtime and possible data loss.

TLSv1.1 and/or older will be dropped

Older servers allow for email authentication using legacy SSL/TLS versions such as TLSv1.0 and/or TLSv1.1 - since both of these are end of life, they will be fully dropped on the new systems, and only TLSv1.2 or newer will be available.

While this generally shouldn't be a problem, we have identified a few customers who use old TLS versions for authentication. We've informed those customers we've identified, however, this list may be incomplete. Users who run very old versions of Windows or OS X may be using these old TLS versions. It's required that you update your operating system or install a TLSv1.2 patch on your system. If that's not possible, Thunderbird mail client often supports TLSv1.2, even on old operating systems.

You can find information om https://docs.cpanel.net/knowledge-base/security/how-to-configure-microsoft-windows-7-to-use-tls-version-1.2/  how to enable TLSv1.2 on Windows 7. We do, however, want to point out that Windows 7 is end of life since January 2020.

OS X High Sierra or higher supports TLSv1.2 in Apple Mail.

Avoid using our hostnames or IPs in your configuration

We generally do not recommend using naming such as server8.hosting4real.net for your hostname for either email, FTP or MySQL. For email use mail.<yourdomain.com>, for FTP use ftp.<yourdomain.com>, and for MySQL use localhost - additionally, do not hardcode IP addresses anywhere.

Customers with external whitelist requirement (payment gateways etc)

In case your payment gateway requires an IP whitelist, please use the new IP supplied within the migration dashboard (https://migration.hosting4real.net/) - this will be the IP that is used on the new servers. Alternatively, if you can specify a subnet, you can whitelist 213.184.85.0/24

Migration updates

Update 26/08/2020 10.58 am: TTL has been lowered to 60 seconds for all domains hosted on server8, additionally we've disabled SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 26th. We'll reenable SpamExperts after migrations have been completed.

Update 27/08/2020 11.17 am: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 27th has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Update 28/08/2020 4.19 pm: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 28th has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Update 30/08/2020 8.15 am: We've lowered TTL to 60 seconds for all domains hosted on server9. We've also stopped the webserver on server8.

Update 01/09/2020 4.15 pm: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 1st has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Update 02/09/2020 5.26 pm: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 2nd has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Update 03/09/2020 1.38 pm: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 3rd has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Update 04/09/2020 11.15 am: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 4th has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Update 08/09/2020 10.03 am: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 8th has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Update 09/09/2020 8.33 am: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 9th has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Update 10/09/2020 11.40 am: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 10th has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Update 17/09/2020 4.21pm: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 17th has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Obviously, the same changes has been made the previous two migration dates.

Update 22/09/2020 6.48pm: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 22nd has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Update 23/09/2020 7.09pm: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 23rd has been disabled. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Update 24/09/2020 8.01pm: SpamExperts for domains being migrated today the 24th has been disabled as of 6pm. It will be reenabled after the migrations have been completed.

Updates

Update 15/08/2020: Added our nameservers (ns1.dk, ns2.dk, ns3.dk and ns4.dk) to the "Customers with external DNS"-section.

Update 19/08/2020: Server9 customers have been scheduled for migration beginning September 1st until September 4th.

Update 27/08/2020: Server10 customers have been scheduled for migration beginning September 8th until September 10th.

Update 12/09/2020: We've changed the backup time from 28 to 14 days based on the ongoing maintenance: https://shop.hosting4real.net/serverstatus.php?view=open - slightly more than 14 days may be available in the end.