Greetings!

First use of the forum which I should've done before now.

I am currently running 7 domains (all my own and used for a method of topic clarity and "user" distinction) through an index.php which "sends" the viewer to the appropriate folder and its "entry" (indexing) html file. Nothing complex. No databases, just HTML, XHTML/CSS pages with text, links to outside sources, and links to local PDF, HTML, DOC, and/or XHTML pages. Plenty of them!

I am transferring to the VPS plan so that the multi-domain thing is more legit, so that I can create an e-commerce project, so that I can make use of multiple MySQL databases (for making dynamically-created menu systems looking into the many pages; for security-from-spidering use in multiple forums; for use in the e-commerce project) and to add a stream media player for audio and video data.

The migration process has had me a bit wary because of the absence of a multi-remote site GUI-based FTP tool (running on my Mac OSX 10.4.10 G5 iMac), the worries about getting out of synch should a glitch stop me mid-stream, and just having all the steps down pat.

So far, I have been creating my procedural steps and will put them up later today after the Comcast guy finds out why our internet speed has dropped 67%, why connectivity is dropped mid-call, and why channels do not resolve -- the triad of their A+B+C service, wherein A=cable, B=phone, C=internet, offers exclusionary service for 'A or B or C', but not AB, AC, BC, or ABC -- I digress into the abyss of 'who stole away American quality?!').

I would appreciate experience-based comments/suggestions on the steps you used - and later on - regarding my list (if not clear to me by then) regarding out-of-order, missing, redundant, questionable, dangerous, useless, impossible, not-specific-enough, extraneous, asking-for-it, senior-moment, and other like-distinguished steps.

I'd also like to know that I am using the correct command, syntax, options, and arguments -- which I will have listed in the stepwise list I will post later. My experience has been in the narrow use of Linux's parents to run in a testing network for QA groups when working at high-tech companies (Solaris, SunOS, AIX, HP-UX -- the last three have unique 'bad memories'), and so, the thousand-flavors-of-vanilla Linux commands are mysteriously 'different' (yet similar) from the thousand-flavors-of-vanilla Unix commands that they so-righteously 'fixed', probably more to protect Linus' initial self-glorifying infringement than to actually fix defects? I'm sure that some improvements exist as well, but I haven't seen them except by the Linux-Unix-OSX-Fink software developers. That's my 'blind spot'.

Anyway, I look forward to this "admin" flashback and really appreciate your help in creating a reproducible "migration procedure" that can be passed on to future migraters.

thanks much,
chris

When I transferred to a vps, I setup a subversion repository for all my files so that I could download them from the vps and ensure that they were all there. Subversion downloads all the files, or none. Sort of like database transactions.

Here are some general tips I learned when transferring to a vps:
- To install PHP, install it from the control panel application templates page rather than directly.
- This may or may not add necessary directives to Apache in the conf file
- Regrettably, I have little experience with php, but could do a little more research
- Since you have multiple MySQL databases, php instances, and multiple sites, you may want to consider using the webserver nginx rather than apache in the future. It uses a fifth of the memory, and is much less of a headache to configure. Very fast on my linux vps base.
- Yum, the package manager is not installed by default.
Install with
rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/4/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/python-elementtree-1.2.6-4.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/4/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/python-sqlite-1.1.6-1.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/4/i386/os/Fedora/RPMS/python-urlgrabber-2.9.6-1.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/4/i386/yum-2.4.1-1.fc4.noarch.rpm
- To make a user sudoable, you need to use "visudo" and uncomment the line " %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL" and then assign the user to the wheel group.
- When adding an init.d script you need to run chkconfig
http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/blcmdl8_chkconfig.htm

I like Comprugs suggestion.

And since you're on a Mac you can sign up for ADC and then use XCode to do your development work:

http://developer.apple.com/tools/subversionxcode.html

[edit]
This is the actual link I was looking for: http://developer.apple.com/internet/scripting/phpappledevtools.html
[/edit]

Just a minor pet peeve. Linus didn't actually write any of the user-space tools.