We’re making progress with the new server (“soju”) – rather than try to create the whole new environment then port everything over, we’ve decided to set up a chroot’d environment on soju that replicates everything on the old server (“arethusa”). This lets us run the old server on the new without it (or anyone else) seeing a difference.
Once this is up and running, we’ll be able to replace old with new and then start phasing domains into the new environment we’re planning.
It’s a great idea but we have a LOT to sort out and test before we can consider it ready for deployment. So far we’ve copied a large number of files onto the new server and will be testing the “chroot jail” concept tomorrow night.