This document provides an overview of how to transfer your digital resources like a web site, email addresses or cloud documents from your existing Internet Service Provider to May First in a smooth and predictable manner.
Your domain name (e.g. example.org
) is a critical part of transferring your digital resources to a new provider. If you are planning to transfer to May First, then your domain name is currently "pointing" to your existing Internet Service Provider. When you have completed the switch to May First, it will point to the May First servers instead.
This step typically comes last, but to avoid downtime it is important to start by carefully planning this change.
Your domain name Registrar is the company that you paid $20/year or so for the right to use your domain name. Popular registrars include Gandi.net, Name.com or Godaddy.com.
When you first registered your domain name you had to choose your domain name's Name Servers. The Name Servers refer to the addresses of the computers that point your domain name to the servers storing your resources (e.g. web sites, email inboxes etc). Name servers are typically run by Internet Service Providers. Common name server addresses might kim.ns.cloudflare.com or ns1.bluehost.com or a.ns.mayfirst.org. You can usually tell from the domain name itself which company or organization is in charge of it.
When transfering your resources to May First, you can accomplish this step in one of two ways:
Feel free to reach out to support to discuss the best method for your transfer.
Setup all email accounts via the May First Control Panel. The first step is to add all the email accounts you wish to move via the control panel. When creating accounts, you can specify a "recovery email address" for each user.
After this step is complete, invite all people you created email accounts for to reset their password and test their login via our web mail, which is the simplest method for testing an email account. They will not have an email messages in their inbox (yet) but they will be prepared when the transfer happens. You may optionally invite users to configure their email clients to use May First mail. This step allows users to configure their phones or desktop computers to download their email if they do not wish to use webmail.
Moving saved email from your existing provider to May First is the most complex step and is covered in the transfer email help page.
Once everyone is prepared for the move and you have completed the transfer, you can change your domain name setting to point your email to May First.
When adding a web site that is currently hosted with another provider, the first step is to create a temporary May First domain name so you will be able to access the new site (since using your current domain will always go to the existing site).
You can follow this guide to create a new domain, such as myorg.mayfirst.info
. You will only need to create one "Web site" or "ALIAS" record.
The next step is to add a web site to your hosting order. Be sure to only enter your new, temporary domain name.
Next, you can add a ssh or sftp user that will allow you to copy your files to your new web site (such as regular html files or the WordPress or Drupal files that your site may be using).7
If you use a Content Management System (like Drupal or WordPress) or some form of database driven web site, you will need to copy the database to May First. We have a faq on copying databases. Or, MFPL can help you find a member to hire to help you with the transition. After you copy the files - don't make any updates until after the change over takes place!
When everything is in place and tested, you can make your site live by:
Start by creating a "Nextcloud" account in the control panel for each person in your organization that will need to share documents. If you have already created an email account, you can re-use the same user account, just check the "Nextcloud" checkbox to grant that user account access to Nextcloud.
The easiest way to transfer files to Nextcloud is to start by installing the Nextcloud Destkop application. This provides access to all your Nextcloud files via your regular desktop file explorer.
If your cloud provider has a desktop sync tool (like Dropbox or Gooogle Drive that provides you with access to your documents on your desktop computer like the are regular files), you can simply drag the files from the old provider to the new provider.
If your cloud provider does not offer this feature, but does allow you to download all your files in one zipped archive, then you can download the files and unzip them into your Nextcloud folder.
Otherwise, you will have to download the files one by one from your provider and into your Nextcloud folder on your computer.