Time flys............

Powie

Wasn't here some month's.

We stopped our Enhance test environment some months ago. Enhance wasn't ready for production. As I see in the roadmap, Plesk migrations aren't still not possible, and now they are on the roadmap for November. Realistic?

The most important question for us:

Is it now possible to "recover" the master server each time, and by our own support staff?

Adam

Yes, November is realistic. It's mostly complete, we just need to make sure it's as perfect as possible before release.

If you have a larger cluster, we recommend creating a block level backup of the control panel server for disaster recovery. However, in November (ETA), we are releasing a feature called "control panel server replication" which will allow you to nominate another server in your panel to be the secondary control panel server. If your primary control panel fails, you can promote your secondary server to primary and that can take over the control panel role.

Powie

We had stopped our Prod deployment in 2023 because of managing the master server.

Maybee things have changed, how it will go in release 12?

cPFence

Powie

For us, panel replication isn’t an issue at all. We use a VPS for our main control panel with snapshot backups, and honestly, even when the replication feature is released in v12, we’ll stick with snapshot backups. They’re reliable and make sense for several reasons, and I think this is the approach most should follow anyway.

Andrei

cPFence, we use the same setup. I can't understand why people become so obsessed with this non-issue.

ivansalloum

cPFence Could you share your approach please?

Rich

Andrei Just because it's a non-issue to you doesn't make it any less significant of an issue to others.

One of my estates has the CP as a VPS the other doesn't. That presents an issue. I can do something about it if I wanted to, P2V the server, but, it brings significant risk and downtime. There are others here who couldn't do that themselves and will 100% need this feature.

Besides it makes a nice redundancy setup to have failover control panel to a separate DC. If your DC gets nuked with your CP in it, good luck restoring that to a different box with different IP. Orchd will have a fit and your estate collapse into a mess long before you can cry to Enhance for help. So how much of a non-issue is that to your business? OVH did have a data centre fire, it happens.

Had I known it would take 18+ months and counting I'd of made an image of the dam server by now. But there are very legitimate reasons to have this CP replication/failover feature anyway.

cPFence

ivansalloum Could you share your approach please?

Just put your main CP on a VPS with a provider that offers reliable snapshot backups (Hetzner is our favorite). In case of failure, you can restore a snapshot in just a few minutes. For web server and email roles, you can add as many dedicated servers as you need, but always keep your main CP on a VPS. Problem solved.

Note: Never use snapshot backups for DNS, email, or web servers, as this can lead to inconsistencies and cause issues. Snapshots are only reliable for the main CP and backup servers.

cPFence

Rich Just because it's a non-issue to you doesn't make it any less significant of an issue to others.

One of my estates has the CP as a VPS the other doesn't. That presents an issue. I can do something about it if I wanted to, P2V the server, but, it brings significant risk and downtime. There are others here who couldn't do that themselves and will 100% need this feature.

Besides it makes a nice redundancy setup to have failover control panel to a separate DC. If your DC gets nuked with your CP in it, good luck restoring that to a different box with different IP. Orchd will have a fit and your estate collapse into a mess long before you can cry to Enhance for help. So how much of a non-issue is that to your business? OVH did have a data centre fire, it happens.

I agree , some Enhance users are already stuck and really need this feature as soon as possible. It’s definitely a nice feature to have for the reasons you mentioned.

In the meantime, as a temporary solution, a Veeam snapshot to a server outside your DC can come in handy.
Bare Metal Snapshot Backup Made Simple

webnestify

cPFence But what if Hetzner close your account or some disaster happened ? It's always good idea to have another server from another provider as failsafe 🙂

Rich

cPFence Yeah also borgbackup and restic can do the job. Hetzner have a guide for borgbackup for there SSH storage.

cPFence

Rich

While BorgBackup and Restic are great for file-level backups, they’re not designed for full system snapshot backups. In our experience, the only free tool that can handle automated daily full system snapshots (hot backups without shutting down the server) is Veeam. Tools like Clonezilla work, but require downtime and manual intervention, which isn’t practical for most setups.

Rich

cPFence Thanks for the correction I thought they could. Restic can apparently use LVM/BTRFS/VSS etc.. snapshots, but then it's big job setting that up. I 🥰 Clonzilla and ddrescue tools on the iso.

Zoinkies

If we don’t see migration for control panel soon I’m going to migrate away from Enhance, no fault of Enhance but we’re on the EOC for our server provider that our Enhance control panel runs on, and by end of January it ends which will nuke our Enhance.

Rich

Zoinkies The CP can be moved, just not 100% straight forward and Adam needs to help adjust some bits within Orchd for the new IP's/certs. So doesn't have to be a complete write off, that's up to you. I'd understand if you decided to call that a hard limit from a business perspective.

Yeah this refactor has clearly bitten off more then they'd expected or even intended. This sort of switch was always going to be a PITA. Sometimes its better to take the hit and redirect the ship, rather then take 9 different course corrections to turn. That said scope creep is a bitch. 🤷

xyzulu

At least some php updates have just been released.. 12.0 moved to January 2025 now as well.

Zoinkies

xyzulu We wont see 12 till End of Jan/Mid Feb +, I think the Enhance team has over extended with how much time needs to go into this update, should've broken it up into smaller releases.

ecknz

xyzulu

xyzulu At least some php updates have just been released.

Yes finally, I'm not sure why it was not done sooner / overlooked.

xyzulu 12.0 moved to January 2025 now as well.

It was not surprising, the end of February would be more realistic.

Zoinkies I think the Enhance team has over extended with how much time needs to go into this update, should've broken it up into smaller releases.

A staged update would have been much better, replace the docker components first then introduce the rest one by one or in groups. Big updates in multiple areas are troublesome because as of the components need to work in harmony, one bug can cause huge delays eg months

ecknz

Rich The CP can be moved, just not 100% straight forward

Yes correct, I had to move the CP role to another location and it was a bit of a mission but Adam saved the day and found the cause of the errors. The SSL certs still existed on the destination and a few docker folders needed to be deleted.

From memory, I used an existing server in the estate where the role needed to be, then removed the Enhance install from that server to reinstall the main role.

Zoinkies

Rich the issue for us is, our contract ends with the server provider, so we’ll lose the control panel if we can’t move it by end of January. we’ll have no choice soon to move it the 12v isn’t released by end of January. I’ve asked Adam, and sadly he’s too busy right now to deal with moving it for us, which is fine I understand that.

cPFence

Zoinkies the issue for us is, our contract ends with the server provider, so we’ll lose the control panel if we can’t move it by end of January. we’ll have no choice soon to move it the 12v isn’t released by end of January. I’ve asked Adam, and sadly he’s too busy right now to deal with moving it for us, which is fine I understand that.

That’s unfortunate. If it’s not released by the end of January, maybe you could extend your server for just a month or two? I don’t think the release will be delayed much longer than that.

Rich

Zoinkies Sorry to hear that, well I'll keep my fingers crossed for you! Be a shame to see you have to leave, even if it's for a bit. I totally get that issue though. Not like you can painlessly export and import to another estate either, it would require all new passwords creating for email accounts, databases, client accounts etc...

cPFence

webnestify But what if Hetzner close your account or some disaster happened ? It's always good idea to have another server from another provider as failsafe

I agree. We always keep our backup servers with another provider (AlphaVPS is our choice). We do this for both Enhance Btrfs website backups and the main CP hot backup with a full system snapshot using Veeam. Indeed, the replication feature could save us the hassle of relying on third-party tools like Veeam.

But the real question is, does this make anyone -like the OP- stop using Enhance or wait on the fence until the CP replication feature is released? Not really. Simply use a VPS as your main CP and a tool like Veeam, and you can sleep well at night until the Enhance team releases this feature.