Migrating from cPanel

What transfers

ExtraCP has a built-in importer that reads a standard cPanel backup (cpmove / pkgacct .tar.gz) and recreates the account. It brings across:

• Website files — restored as the account's own isolated Linux user.
• Databases and database users — recreated with their passwords preserved.
• Email — mailboxes and forwarders, including the old messages.
• DNS — the zone, plus addon-domain zones.
• Domains — addon, subdomain, and parked (alias) domains.
• PHP — the account's PHP version.

The original cPanel username and the database / mail password hashes are preserved, so sites and mailboxes keep working after the move.

Steps

1. In cPanel (or WHM), generate a full account backup — the standard cpmove-USER.tar.gz / backup-*.tar.gz file.
2. In ExtraCP, go to Accounts → Import, and upload the backup (or point it at a file already on the server).
3. Review the summary and start the import. ExtraCP recreates the account through its normal account-creation path — isolated user, DNS, mail, databases — so the imported account is a first-class ExtraCP account, not a special case.
4. Update the domain's nameservers / DNS to point at your ExtraCP server when you're ready to cut over.

Safety

Backups are untrusted archives, so the importer refuses path traversal, symlink escapes, and oversized entries, and never executes archive contents. A malformed or malicious backup is rejected rather than trusted.

Good to know

• Imported mail is stored under ExtraCP's mail user by design — this is expected and correct.
• You can import several accounts; each becomes fully isolated from the others.