Migrating from ViciBox

Moving off an old ViciBox (or any self-hosted VICIdial) server? The Migrate from ViciBox tool copies your whole dialer — users, campaigns, lists, leads, DNC, call history and your custom scripts — onto your new VICIfast server, then syncs your call recordings in the background. You do it all from one guided dialog. This walkthrough takes you through every step, click by click.

Before you start

• You need SSH access to your old box — the root login, or a user that can read the VICIdial installation. The tool never asks for your password: it gives you a one-time access key to paste in instead.
• Your old box must be reachable from the internet on its SSH port (usually 22). If a firewall protects it, you will add one allow-rule during the setup — the tool shows you the exact command.
• Your new VICIfast server must be fully provisioned (status ACTIVE). Anything already on it will be replaced — use a fresh server.
• Plan a quiet window. Before the copy starts you will pause every campaign on the old box and log every agent out.
• Only the account owner sees the migration button.

What gets migrated (and what does not)

The copy is your VICIdial database plus your custom files. Concretely:

• Migrated: users and agents, campaigns, lists, leads, DNC entries, call and lead history, inbound groups, call menus (IVRs), custom-field tables, and any custom AGI scripts you added. Small audio stores (prompts and IVR audio, up to 500 MB) come along in the same pass.
• Synced afterwards, in the background: call recordings, voicemail, and larger audio stores. Your dialer is already live while this runs.
• Not migrated: trunk and carrier settings (VICIfast manages trunks its own way — set yours up in the dashboard), server-level settings, and live runtime state like who is logged in right now.

Step 1 — Open the tool

1. Click Servers in the left sidebar.
2. Click your new server’s name.
3. In the tools strip near the top of the page, click Migrate from ViciBox.

A dialog opens with six steps across the top: Connect, Paste key, Review, Migrate, Sync, Done. You can close it at any point — nothing is lost, and long-running steps keep working in the background.

Step 2 — Connect to your old box

1. In Source host or IPv4, type your old server’s hostname or IP address — for example vicibox.example.com.
2. Leave SSH port at 22 unless your old box uses a different one.
3. Leave SSH user at root unless you log in with a different user.
4. Click Generate access key.

This creates a one-time key pair. The next screen shows the public half. The probe that uses it is read-only — it never writes anything to your old server.

Step 3 — Paste the key, then run the probe

1. Copy the three-line command block shown in the dialog (or click Copy public key only if you prefer to paste the key yourself).
2. Log in to your old box over SSH, the way you normally do.
3. Paste the command block and press Enter. It adds our one-time key to the authorized_keys file — nothing else changes.
4. Back in the dialog, click Run probe.

The probe takes about 10–30 seconds. It checks that your old box really runs VICIdial, that the database answers, and that there is enough free disk space — then it counts everything you have: leads, campaigns, users, DNC entries, recordings.

If the probe cannot connect, the dialog tells you exactly what to fix — usually your old box’s firewall. It shows the IP address we connect from and ready-to-paste firewall commands that allow SSH from that IP. Fix it, then click Re-probe (same key). One catch: the key expires after 15 minutes. If it lapses, click Start over and generate a fresh one.

Step 4 — Review what we found

You now see two panels side by side: your old box on the left (leads, campaigns, users, DNC, recordings size) and your new VICIfast box on the right, so you can see exactly what is about to be replaced.

If agents are still logged in or campaigns are still active on the old box, you get an amber "Source isn’t drained yet" warning. Now is the time to:

1. Pause every campaign on the old box (in its admin, set each campaign to active = N).
2. Log out every agent (or have them close their agent tabs).
3. Click Start migration. (If you are sure the warning is stale, Start anyway works too — the tool re-checks at copy time and stops with a clear error if anything is still active.)

Step 5 — Confirm the wipe, paste the second key

1. Read the warning: everything on the new server will be replaced by your old box’s data. Type WIPE into the box to confirm.
2. Optionally pick a Recordings sync bandwidth. Leave it on Unlimited (default) — both servers are in datacentres and the old one is idle after the move.
3. Optionally tick Dry run to copy the data without restoring it first, so you can inspect the totals before committing. Most people leave this off.
4. Click Mint dump key.
5. Paste the new key on your old box, exactly like step 3. It is a different key — paste this one too. This one stays valid for 4 hours.
6. Click Start dump + restore now. (Or click "Or schedule the cutover for a later time" to pick an off-peak moment — the copy fires automatically within about a minute of the chosen time.)

Step 6 — Watch the copy

The Migrate step shows a live checklist. On your old box: drain re-check, database dump, custom-script packing, upload. On your new box: download and checksum, database import, script unpacking, IP rewrite (every reference to your old server’s IP is rewritten to the new one), Asterisk restart, and a smoke test. An elapsed timer runs next to a rough time estimate based on your database size — a typical dialer database lands in a few minutes; very large ones can take longer.

You can close the dialog and walk away — the job keeps running, and the button on the server page turns into a live "Migrating MM:SS" indicator. We also email you when the migration completes or fails.

Step 7 — Recordings sync (automatic)

As soon as the dialer copy finishes, the recordings sync starts by itself — no extra clicks. It copies your live recording folder, completed recordings (usually the bulk), voicemail, and any larger audio store from the old box to the new one.

• Your dialer is already fully working during this step. Agents can log in and take calls.
• A progress bar shows bytes copied, current speed and a time estimate. Tens of gigabytes can take a few hours.
• The sync is resumable. If anything interrupts it, click Retry sync — it picks up where it left off instead of starting over.
• A failed recordings sync does not mean the migration failed. The dialer stays live; only the old recordings still need copying.

Step 8 — After "Done"

1. Update your carrier’s IP whitelist with your new server’s IP — the old IP is no longer your dialer.
2. Point your DNS records and your team’s bookmarks at the new hostname.
3. Place one test outbound call before sending agents back in.
4. Spot-check in the dashboard: your campaigns, lists and lead counts on the Lists and Campaigns tabs should match what the old box showed.
5. Keep the old box running (but idle) until the recordings sync shows complete. After that, remove our key from its authorized_keys — in most cases the tool cleans it up for you, and tells you if it could not.

Good to know

• The WIPE step really wipes: anything already on the new server is replaced by the old box’s data. Only run this against a fresh server.
• The first (probe) key expires after 15 minutes; the second (dump) key after 4 hours. Expired key? Start over — it takes a minute.
• Cancelling mid-copy can leave the new server half-restored. You would need a factory reset before retrying, so only cancel if you mean it.
• Very large databases — anything we estimate at over about 2 hours to copy — are refused up front with a clear message. Contact support for a manual migration in that case.
• The recordings sync has a 4-hour ceiling per attempt. Huge archives simply resume on retry, so nothing is lost.
• If you use VICIdial custom fields, check the completion screen: if any custom table still references the old server’s IP, the dialog names the tables and shows the exact SQL to fix it.
• The button on the server page remembers recent history: "Migrated ✓" for a week after success, "Migration failed — review" (with classified next steps) after a failure, and a Previous attempts list inside the dialog.