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Frequently Asked Questions

Importing cPanel Sites to Your Managed or Fully Managed Server

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Last Updated: April 28, 2015 11:44 AM

If you have a server that uses Gateway (more info) as well as cPanel, you can import websites you have that use cPanel shared hosting accounts.

For this feature to work:

  • The cPanel VPS and shared hosting account must be in the same COMPANY_NAME account.
  • You must not have already set up a site on the server that uses the same domain as the shared hosting account. If you've already set up the site, you need to remove it through WHM (more info).
  • The shared hosting account must use cPanel (more info).

Importing your site moves all of the shared hosting account's content (e.g. all of its files, databases, configured domains, etc.), but nothing outside of the hosting account (e.g. DNS zone files).

Because importing a site does not affect your domains' DNS, you must change their DNS to point to your VPS. We have more information about that in the What Next? section of this article.

To Import Sites to Your Managed VPS Using cPanel

You can import sites when you set up your server, destroy and rebuild it, or at any other time using the following directions:

  1. Log in to your Account Manager.
  2. Click Servers.
  3. Next to the account you want to use, click Manage.
  4. In the cPanel Sites section, click Import Sites.

    If the domain whose site you want to import already displays here, you must remove it first (more info).

  5. Select the domains currently hosted on a cPanel shared hosting account you want to import, and then click Import.

What next?

To make the site now hosted on your VPS visible to the Internet, you'll need to update your domain name to use either:

  • Your server's IP address as the domain's primary A record — The server's IP address you'll need to use displays on this page. If your domain is registered with us you can use it in conjunction with our DNS manager to make the update (more info).
  • Nameservers you created for sites hosted on this server — If your domain name is registered with us, you can update the domain name's nameservers through our Domain Manager (more info).

After you have everything situated, you should cancel your cPanel shared hosting account because you'll no longer need it (more info).