Upgrade to a New FreeBSD Virtual Private Servers Now you can quickly and easily upgrade your current Virtual Private Servers running BSD/OS Unix to a new Virtual Private Servers running FreeBSD Unix. Why Upgrade to a New FreeBSD Virtual Private Servers? NOTE: If your Virtual Private Servers was ordered before Nov 23, 1999, you are likely running BSD/OS. To find out which O/S your Virtual Private Servers is running, use the uname command: % uname   Create a FreeBSD Shadow Account Virtual Private Servers customers who wish to move to this improved platform will be provided a new "shadow account" for migrating all of their current BSD/OS Virtual Private Servers files. To create a new FreeBSD "shadow account" simply follow the steps below. You will not be charged a new setup fee for creating a shadow account, nor will you be charged a monthly fee while the account is still a shadow account. You will have 30 days to move your current account to the new shadow account. If you have any questions about this process, contact us at migration@iserver.com. Shadow Simply go to the Create Shadow Account section of the Admin Backroom. Select the account you would like to shadow and follow the instructions on the screen. Our Customer Service Staff will be informed when you request a shadow account. Typically, this shadow account will be created by the service staff within one day of your request. After the shadow account is created, you will receive a notification via e-mail with the new shadow account IP address and other important information. Read this information carefully. It will assist you greatly in the migration. Testing When you create your shadow account, your content is moved automatically to your new server. However, we do not guarantee that the automated move was accurate or complete. After the new shadow account is created you will be given 30 days to review all of the content on the FreeBSD shadow account. Remember, in requesting a new shadow account it is fully your responsibility to ensure that you have verified that all files, services and settings on your new shadow account are correct BEFORE requesting that the shadow account goes live. Go Live Once you have thoroughly tested your new FreeBSD account, you are ready to make the FreeBSD account live. Anytime between forty-eight (48) hours and 30 days after you create your shadow account, you can request to go live. In order to "Go Live," you must edit the zone files for the domain name(s) pointing to your existing BSDI Virtual Private Servers by replacing the old BSDI IP address with the new FreeBSD shadow account IP address. Once you modify the DNS information for each domain name, all requests for the domain name(s) pointing to your existing Virtual Private Servers account will be routed to your new FreeBSD shadow account. By using the DNS Wizard in the Admin Backroom to make the necessary zone file changes, you will be able to decide WHEN and WHAT domain names will be made 'live' on the FreeBSD shadow account. You can edit your DNS information by following these steps: Go to the DNS Information Interface in the Admin Backroom. Select the appropriate domain and click 'Edit' at the left of the first line. In the data field you will want to enter the IP address of the shadow FreeBSD account and then click 'Update Resource Record.' If for some reason you run into any problems, you may switch back to the BSDI account by using the above procedure to change the 'A' Record for a domain name back to the BSDI IP address. You may only revert back to BSDI if you have not yet requested that your server be deshadowed. NOTE: If your domain names do not list our nameservers (NS1.secure.net and NS2.secure.net) or your Virtual Name Servers as the authoritative nameservers, you will need to contact the administrators of the authoritative nameservers in order to make the necessary changes to your zone files. Make sure they also update the MX (mail) records to point to the new server if your Virtual Private Servers is intended to act as a mail server.   Deshadow Once you have made the FreeBSD server live via the instructions above AND are totally confident that everything is working properly, you will need to contact our Service Staff to 'deshadow' your account. The deshadowing of the account terminates the old BSDi server and points all domains to the new server (if you haven't already done this yourself). It will also update the database so that the Admin Backroom shows the new FreeBSD server information and IP address. Deshadowing is non-reversible. Because of DNS propagation issues, we recommend that you do not deshadow within 48 hours of creating your shadow server. However, you must request to deshadow your account within 30 days of the account shadow activation date. YOU SHOULD NOT REQUEST THAT THE ACCOUNT BE DESHADOWED UNTIL YOU ARE CERTAIN THAT YOUR NEW SERVER IS FUNCTIONING PROPERLY. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE VERIFICATION OF ALL CONTENT AND TESTING THE NEW SERVER TO MAKE SURE THAT IT FUNCTIONS PROPERLY. Once the account is deshadowed you will not have access to the old BSDi server. You will not be able to revert back to the BSDi server. All data on the BSDi server will be lost. DO NOT deshadow your account until you are assured that the FreeBSD account is functioning properly. We recommend that you point the domain name(s) to the FreeBSD Virtual Private Servers for several days prior to requesting that the account be deshadowed. To deshadow an existing shadow account simply Contact Our Customer Service Staff. They will need to know your User ID, account ID and IP address (192.41.XX.XXX) of the shadow account you wish to deshadow.