Moving a batch of cPanel accounts to DirectAdmin, what actually broke for you?

Mujkanovic · 2026-08-05T09:37:03+0100

I have around forty sites sitting on cPanel and I am planning the move to DirectAdmin on a fresh Ubuntu box. The transfer tool handles the obvious part, so what I am after is the list of things that come back to bite two weeks later.

So far I have found that cron paths and custom PHP handler settings need doing by hand, and mail filters do not always survive the import cleanly. DNS I am doing separately through Cloudflare so that one I am not worried about.

What I have not tested yet is anything with a mailing list, SpamAssassin rules, or accounts using cPanel specific things like the Node.js app manager.

For those who have done a batch move rather than one site: what did you find broken after the fact, and did you keep the old server running in parallel or cut over in one go?

arz host · 2026-08-06T08:12:11+0100

One thing I'd definitely check is email. In my experience, mail settings are usually where small issues show up after the move, even when the websites seem fine. I'd also keep the old server running for a few days just in case something gets missed. It makes it much easier to compare settings or switch back if needed.
Have you already made a list of the cPanel features your 40 sites are using? That might help you spot things like Node.js apps, custom PHP settings, or mailing lists before you do the final migration.

Steve32 · 2026-08-06T10:09:04+0100

The one that got me on a batch move was cron, though not the paths you have already spotted. Every account keeps whatever minute it was set to, and after an import they all land on the same minute on the new box. Forty accounts firing backup scripts together at 3am looks exactly like a load problem with no cause. Worth spreading them out before you cut over rather than after.

Mail is where I would spend the parallel week. Keep the old box accepting on a lower priority MX, because the accounts that break are the ones with forwarders pointing at addresses hosted on the same server, and those fail quietly instead of bouncing. On SpamAssassin, per-user prefs did not survive in any form I could find, so anyone with tuned rules restarts from defaults and will notice before you do.

Moving a batch of cPanel accounts to DirectAdmin, what actually broke for you?

Mujkanovic

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arz host

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Steve32

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