Complete cPanel to DirectAdmin Migration Guide: Known Issues, Full Transfer Methods, and Single Account Conversion

1. Important Considerations Before Migrating from cPanel to DirectAdmin

1.1 Known Limitations

• Mailman mailing lists are NOT converted to Majordomo.
• You must generate the cpmove-user.tar.gz backup yourself for security reasons.
• DirectAdmin strictly uses username_database and username_user formats.

Because cPanel sometimes shortens usernames due to length limits, DA may need to rename database users. Example warning:

WARNING! us_wordpress cannot be owned by user, renaming database user to user_wordpress

1.2 Additional Notes

• Keep all cpmove-user.tar.gz files after restore for safety.
• DirectAdmin and cPanel support different feature sets (e.g., DA supports nginx/OpenLiteSpeed, MySQL 8, rspamd; but NOT PostgreSQL or Ruby).
• Max username length in DA is 16 characters (configurable in directadmin.conf).

To find the longest username on cPanel:

ls /var/cpanel/users | awk '{print length, $0}' | sort -nr | head -n1

1.3 Backup Filename Requirements

Valid format: cpmove-USERNAME.tar.gz

If your backups are named incorrectly, rename them:

Rename user.tar.gz files:

for i in `ls *.tar.gz | grep '^[A-Za-z0-9]*.tar.gz'`; do { mv -vf ${i} cpmove-${i}; }; done

Rename backup-..._user.tar.gz files:

for i in `ls backup-[0-9]*.*.tar.gz`; do { USERNAME=`echo $i | cut -d_ -f3 | cut -d'.' -f1`; mv -v $i cpmove-${USERNAME}.tar.gz; }; done

1.4 Missing Users in “Move Users Between Resellers”

Rebuild reseller user lists:

echo "action=cache&value=showallusers" >> /usr/local/directadmin/data/task.queue
/usr/local/directadmin/dataskq d

1.5 If Resellers Were Not Restored First

All users will be assigned to admin. To reassign them:

cd /home/admin/all_backups
for i in `ls user*.tar.gz`; do {
  RESELLER=`echo $i | cut -d. -f2`
  USER=`echo $i | cut -d'.' -f3`
  /usr/local/directadmin/scripts/move_user_to_reseller.sh $USER admin $RESELLER
}; done

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2. Full cPanel → DirectAdmin Migration (All Accounts)

2.1 Steps on the cPanel Server

Create backups for all users:

mkdir -p /home/all_backups
for user in `ls /var/cpanel/users/`; do {
  /scripts/pkgacct ${user} /home/all_backups
}; done

Transfer backups to DirectAdmin server:

rsync -avt --delete /home/all_backups/ root@your_directadmin_server.com:/home/admin/all_backups/

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2.2 Steps on the DirectAdmin Server

Ensure correct ownership:

chown -R admin. /home/admin/all_backups

Restore all accounts:

Go to:

Admin Level → Admin Backup/Transfer

Select the directory /home/admin/all_backups and restore all accounts.

Done!

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3. Low Space Alternative: Transfer Accounts One by One

3.1 Setup Passwordless SSH from cPanel → DirectAdmin

ssh-keygen

Copy /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub to:

/root/.ssh/authorized_keys

3.2 Automated One by One Transfer

for user in `ls /var/cpanel/users/`; do {
  /scripts/pkgacct ${user} /home/all_backups
  rsync -avt /home/all_backups/cpmove-${user}.tar.gz \
    root@your_directadmin_server.com:/home/admin/all_backups/cpmove-${user}.tar.gz
  rm -f /home/all_backups/cpmove-${user}.tar.gz
}; done

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4. Single Account Migration (cPanel → DirectAdmin)

4.1 Steps on the cPanel Server

Create backup:

/scripts/pkgacct USERNAME /home/user_backups

Transfer backup:

rsync -avt /home/user_backups/cpmove-USERNAME.tar.gz \
  root@your_directadmin_server.com:/home/admin/

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4.2 Steps on the DirectAdmin Server

Convert cPanel backup to DirectAdmin format:

/usr/local/directadmin/shared/cpanel_to_da/cpanel_to_da.sh \
  /home/admin/cpmove-USERNAME.tar.gz \
  /home/admin/converted_user_backup/

Fix ownership:

chown -R admin:admin /home/admin/converted_user_backup

Restore via DirectAdmin panel:

Admin Level → Admin Backup/Transfer

Set the path to /home/admin/converted_user_backup and restore.

Done!