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@Jonathan Lahijani, you can install whatever you want on your server instance. I have installed MariaDB.

Is there a hassle-free way to migrate/transfer a Processwire site from one server to another - both Linux, CentOS to Ubuntu? Install Processwire on the new server and then replace files and database with what was on the old server? I may have already lost access to the old installation, messing up DNS/IP etc. while transferring other domains to the new server. Is there a way to transfer Processwire sites with just the backed-up files and database?

I've gone with Vultr. Looks very good so far. Gives you lots of control, everything works very sensibly, plenty of useful documentation and support is responsive.

Thanks for the excellent info @FireWire! Is Virtualmin free? Or should I still get a license if I want to use my websites professionally, like with cPanel I guess? How do Webmin, Vesta, Plesk and others stack up? What is the best open source and free option? Vultr apparently offers Plesk as option during the setup process - haven't tried that yet...

Thanks @Krlosand @ErikMH! I'm almost certainly going with a Vultr Cloud Compute instance. Any arguments against Vultr? Anyone had bad experiences with them? Are there Vultr alternatives that are similar but better? Or strong arguments to use a fully managed VPS instead? What Linux version would you recommend? Debian or AlmaLinux or Alpine Linux or Ubuntu or ... etc. ? Does it make any difference? Does Processwire work better with one or the other?

Excellent. Thanks, @ErikMH. I actually have tried Vultr for a small temp side project years ago, after positive impressions in research. They did not come up in my search for VPS hosts. I'll look into them again. Hostinger, A2 Hosting, SiteGround, Dreamhost, InMotion, IONOS, etc. often come up as Bluehost VPS alternatives. Are they? Any good? Which to avoid? Anyone have experience with OVHcloud? Other options under the radar?

I have had my websites etc. on Bluehost for over a decade, but they're now extorting me out of too much money from migration from CentOS - they should have fixed that a year ago as part of the service imho... - and trying to force me on bigger plans I don't need. What are the best, most reliable value-for-money VPS hosting providers for a bunch of Processwire websites and email etc. for 2025? What are your experiences with the current hosting landscape? Any recommendations much appreciated.

@theoretic, hopefully you had solved this by now, but had you made any changes via EasyApache and could this play a role in your case?

Thanks @kaz. I thought this module was gone and was replaced by the templates/fields export features, but see it was updated December 2021, relatively recently. ?

@BrendonKoz, when I started this thread I was not sure if PHP had anything to do with it, but looking into it further it became clear that it had. So I started another thread - sorry... - where I found the solution: PHP upgrade via EasyApache doesn't include the Apache mod_suexec module by default. Without that module 'the system executes PHP applications as the nobody system user' instead of your myusername. 'If you install the suEXEC module, the system executes PHP applications as the user that owns the VirtualHost that served the request.' I guess these modules were introduced somewhere between recent PHP versions? Enabling the mod_suexec module, included in EasyApache4, should fix most problems. There is also another Apache module mod_suphp that may be required to fix issues with some scripts.

Apologies for my rude response, @gebeer. No problem. Hope this week is better for you. My session stuff is still not fixed after solving the user/permission issues. This thread cleared up most of my PW session questions, so it must be something dumb in my script/templates.

Edit: Solution is at the end of this comment, after a few educational dead ends. ? @gebeerI use EasyApache4; just standardized automated upgrade/changes on a VPS with a few PW websites that have been running fine for years. I have not improvised anything, not made any manual configuration changes. Of course there is a misconfiguration somewhere. I'm trying to find out where and created this thread to find out if anyone had seen something similar after PHP config changes. Here's one via a Google search - also uses CentOS, but with Apache vs Nginx issue, so problably not relevant. Thanks for the file permissions link. I'll see if I can fix my problem with that, but they're not clearcut instructions what ownership and permissions each folder/file should have. I see my Apache now runs as 'nobody'; I think it used to be/should be 'myusername'? My PW sites were installed as 'myusername' and all folders/files are owned by that 'myusername'. Edit: EasyApache apparently "updates" user settings or PHP handlers (?) and you have to turn that off? Here is a possible way to make Apache run as 'username' instead of 'nobody', I think, from 2012, so not risking that one... WHM has Apache mod_userdir Tweak where only 'DefaultHost (nobody)' has 'Exclude Protection' selected and all my other hosts/website have 'myusername'. No clue what to do with that info. Can I change DefaultHost to 'myusername' anywhere? There's this file on my CentOS server: # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! # DO NOT EDIT. AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. USE INCLUDE FILES IF YOU NEED TO MAKE A CHANGE # !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! # # Direct modifications to the Apache configuration file WILL be lost upon subsequent # regeneration of this configuration file, or an Apache update. # # To have your modifications retained, you should create/edit administrator-specific # include files: # # /etc/apache2/conf.d/includes/pre_main_global.conf # /etc/apache2/conf.d/includes/pre_virtualhost_global.conf # /etc/apache2/conf.d/includes/post_virtualhost_global.conf ... # These are hard-coded values that are required by cPanel & WHM PidFile /run/apache2/httpd.pid User nobody Group nobody ... Tried changing 'nobody' to 'myusername' in pre_main_global.conf, empty file with only this: User myusername Group myusername And then run these two commands from root in SSH to rebuild httpd.conf and restart Apache: /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/restartsrv_httpd One site that was giving me nasty 500 server errors is suddenly back, but that could also be because I changed permissions on all folders to 777 - bad for security... <?php echo exec('whoami'); ?> is still giving me 'nobody' as Apache user. Apache mod_userdir Tweak in WHM still has 'DefaultHost (nobody)'. Another clue here: 'If you install the suEXEC module, the system executes PHP applications as the user that owns the VirtualHost that served the request. If you uninstall the suEXEC module, the system executes PHP applications as the nobody system user.' mod_suexec is an Apache Module that can be enabled in EasyApache4. Enabling that seems to fix most issues I had. <?php echo exec('whoami'); ?> now give the correct 'myusername'. Edit: There is also another Apache Module mod_suphp that may be required to fix issues with some scripts.

Bullshit. I don't know if this is 1 problem; there may be several completely unrelated things going on and I am trying to untangle them. I create threads when I try to solve distinct issues and mostly to keep track of my own findings. I had already acknowledged that my problem may be caused by something dumb in my script, but that is not what this thread is about. This thread was about the proper PW way of doing PHP sessions, if there are any differences with regular PHP sessions to watch out for, how and where in PW sessions are stored, etc. @bernhard@BitPoet@Jan Romero had already answered most questions. The fact that my /site/assets/sessions/ folder is empty and sessions process suddenly had gone missing seems to point to other issues as far as I understand now, so I started another thread about that - or is /site/assets/sessions/ supposed to be empty?

After upgrading to PHP 8 I now get errors like this in one of my sites: Unable to load Modules Unable to create directory /home/myusername/public_html/mywebsite/site/assets/cache/FileCompiler/site/modules/JquerySelectize/ ...and trying to clear caches: Fatal Error: Uncaught Error: Class "CacheControlTools" not found in site/modules/ProcessCacheControl/ProcessCacheControl.module:284 Other sites were mostly fine now, including Cache Control, but earlier I've had several other issues with suddenly unreachable folders here and here and here after making PHP and Apache changes via EasyApache. Are these known issues? Does anyone recognize them? How can I fix them? I've tried triple-checking/resetting folder ownership/permissions, but can't find a definitive guide what those settings should be and am probably only making things worse.

Is there a way to do a clean reinstall and keep your current content; database and templates configuration? It is probably not as simple as simply backing up the /site folder and the database and uploading/importing those after a fresh reinstall or is it? Process Sessions module is missing from my current installation. I have no idea how that happened. It may or may not have something to do with wrong ownership/permissions on folders, that may or may not have been caused by PHP and Apache config changes. If there is another way to fix that, let me know as well, but I'm curious to find out if a full clean install is possible.