Knowledge Base

Unable to start Plesk migration: Migrator cannot connect to source RPC agent

Symptoms

Cannot start migration:
Panel Migrator failed to connect to RPC Agent running on '203.0.113.2' server.
RPC Agent is required for communication between current server and '203.0.113.2' server

1. Check that there are no firewall rules blocking connections to 10155 port on 203.0.113.2 from that server.
Make sure you could connect to the source server by 10155 port with "telnet" utility running on that server.
2. Check that agent is running on the source server (panel-migrator-rpc-agent.exe process)
and listening on 10155 port. If it does not, try to start 'panel-migrator-rpc-agent.exe',
which is usually installed to "%SYSTEMDRIVE%plesk_migratorrpc-agent". If it is still not running -
investigate debug.log and info.log files on 203.0.113.2 server
(which are usually located at"%SYSTEMDRIVE%plesk_migratorrpc-agent directory).
3. Try to upload RPC Agent installation package to the 203.0.113.2 server and run it manually.
It is possible to telnet to ports 10155,135,137,138,139,445 from the target to the source server without issues. For example:

C:> telnet example.com 8443
Trying 203.0.113.3...
Connected to 203.0.113.3.
Escape character is '^]'.

Cause

This is Windows Migrator Agent bug with ID #PMT-4386 which is planned to be fixed in future updates.

Resolution

Note: if you don't have administrative access to Plesk via RDP, contact your hosting provider regarding the issue

Note: This behavior can be caused by an antivirus software being active in the source server which, in such cases, should be disabled to proceed with the migration process

As a workaround:

Connect to the destination server via RDP.
Copy the following files (RPC agent and certificate files) manually from:
- %plesk_dir%varmodulespanel-migratorthirdpartiespanel-migrator-rpc-agent*.*
- %plesk_dir%varmodulespanel-migratorrpc-agentcertificates*.crt
- %plesk_dir%varmodulespanel-migratorrpc-agentcertificatessource-node.key
to C:panel_migratorrpc-agent.
Connect to the source server via RDP.
Go to C:panel_migratorrpc-agent and paste the copied files.
Run run-panel-migrator-rpc-agent.exe in C:panel_migratorrpc-agentrpc-agent

Note: Do not close the command line window.