Recently I needed to move a large amount of data from one web server to another. I was moving about 50 websites to a new server. I didnt want to download all the data via FTP and then upload it to the new server (especially not from here in Honduras where the Internet isnt as fast as I would have liked). I didnt have SSH access to the old server due to shared hosting security issues. How did I move it all in only a few minutes?
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This is just a quick update regarding the move of the Frondiz CMS to the new server.

Unfortunately, the backup provided by the old host was not complete!  A few sub-folders down there were no files.  I ended up downloading all the files by using wget to log into the old server via ftp which proved to be a fast and reliable way of moving the files.

I placed a maintenance page up on the old server so that if anyone tries to access a site that is still running off the old server they will receive the maintenance message.  This will only apply if a DNS lookup has been cached and is still pointing to the old server.

I have changed the DNS for all Frondiz CMS sites to point to the new server (excluding emails which will remain on the old server for now).  I also setup a DNS monitor for every domain to notify me when the changes had taken place.  They have all successfully rolled over now (except for one which is out of my control and I will be contacting them to remind them to make the change at their end).

Everything seems to be working just fine on the new server now and I dont anticipate any issues.  If you do find any issues then please contact me ASAP.

I recently had to move a website to a new server.  While the DNS changes rolled over, I didnt want people to be able to access the site on the old server as I had already taken a backup and didnt want any more changes to be made.

I used a .htaccess file to redirect any request on the old site to a maintenance page:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/maintenance\.php$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /maintenance.php [R=307,L]

The above code redirects everything except the maintenance.php page to the maintenance.php page.

Its very useful to use scripts like this even when performing general maintenance on your site.  You could get even trickier by allowing your IP address to access the site while still blocking everyone else.  That way you can make sure your updates are working properly before ‘turning the site back on’.