Ahtsham Jutt Linux server specialist

Slot 42 Operator Est. 2011

I look after other people's servers

Fifteen years in web hosting, most of it on the side of the console where the pager goes off. Based in Pakistan, working with hosts, agencies and site owners worldwide.

Slot 38 Operator plate

Who I am

Ahtsham Jutt
Operator, Gujranwala PK, working worldwide

I started in hosting support in 2011 and never really left the server side of it. The work has changed shape a few times, but the middle of it has not. Something is broken, or something has to move, and it has to be right the first time because there is a business on the other end.

Most of what I do now is migrations. Whole servers, or a few hundred accounts at a time, between cPanel, DirectAdmin and Plesk, and onto managed platforms like Cloudways and RunCloud. It is unglamorous work. Most of it is about what the automated tools do not tell you: that the importer renamed every database and broke every wp-config.php, that the addon domains were skipped because of one missing value in a user file, that the mail is in a format the new server has never heard of.

I check those things because I have been caught by all of them, usually at 4am with a client watching.

In hosting
15 YRS
Servers managed
5,000+ SRV
Served worldwide
10,000+ CLIENTS
Panels and platforms
ANY HOST

Slot 34 Boot log System history

How I got here

The short version, in the order it happened.

  1. [2011] First server racked. Hosting support queue, night shift.
  2. [2011] Started my own hosting company. One person, every job.
  3. [2014] First cross-panel migration that went wrong. Learned why.
  4. [2018] Took over the technical side of a second hosting business.
  5. [2020] Started scripting the server build instead of retyping it.
  6. [2023] Joined a major US host's migration team.
  7. [2026] Cross-panel migrations at volume. Still on the pager.

Slot 28 Build-out 4 phases

Four phases, same job

The titles changed. The work was always keeping Linux boxes running for people who cannot afford for them to stop.

  1. 2011

    The support queue

    I started in hosting support, on the tickets nobody else wanted. The site is down, the backup is a week old, and the last person to touch the server has left. Two years of that teaches you where things break.

  2. 2011 to 2018

    Running the whole thing

    Seven years running my own hosting company. Sales, provisioning, billing, the firewall and the 3am pager were all me. There was nobody else to catch a mistake, which is where the habit of checking came from.

  3. 2018 to 2023

    Building it for other people

    I ran the technical side of a second hosting business. Infrastructure, automation, WHMCS, and a steady queue of clients arriving from hosts that had let them down.

  4. 2023 to present

    Migrations at volume

    Inside the migration team of a large US hosting provider. A thousand accounts have to move overnight and the maintenance window does not move. The edge cases in these guides come from there.

Slot 22 Coverage Panels and platforms

Any panel, in any direction

A control panel is an interface over the same Linux server. Knowing three of them is what makes moving between them safe.

cPanel and WHM

Where most of the industry still lives, and where I started. Whole-server transfers, single accounts, and the ones the transfer tool gives up on halfway.

DirectAdmin

The usual destination when a cPanel licence bill stops making sense. Its cPanel importer is good until it silently drops addon domains, which is a setting, not a bug.

Plesk

Different layout, same Linux underneath. Its migrator fails in a small number of predictable ways, and all of them are fixable on the source before you start.

Managed platforms

Cloudways, RunCloud, ServerPilot and GridPane, in both directions. None of them host your email, which is the part that catches people out.

Slot 16 Installed software What I work with

What I work with

Panels and servers mostly. I also write code, which is how the tooling gets built.

Panels
  • cPanel / WHM
  • DirectAdmin
  • Plesk
  • CloudLinux
  • WHMCS
Platforms
  • Cloudways
  • RunCloud
  • ServerPilot
  • GridPane
Servers
  • LiteSpeed
  • Nginx
  • Apache
  • MySQL / MariaDB
  • CSF
  • ModSecurity
Code
  • Bash
  • PHP
  • Laravel
  • WordPress
  • imapsync
Virtualisation
  • SolusVM
  • Virtualizor

Slot 10 Operating procedure

How I work

Boring, in the way you want infrastructure to be.

Scope before touching anything

An inventory of accounts, domains, mail volume, database sizes and DNS before a single byte moves. Most migration disasters are scoping failures in a technical costume.

The old server stays up

Nothing gets decommissioned on cutover day. The source stays intact and reachable until the new server has been checked and the mail has been flowing long enough to trust it.

Verification is a list, not a feeling

Domain count, mailbox count, message counts per folder, database spot checks, cron jobs, SSL, DNS. Checked and reported, not assumed from a green tick in a log.

You get told what actually happened

Including the awkward parts. If something had to be rebuilt by hand, it goes in the write-up instead of being discovered by you three weeks later.

Slot 02 Contact Reply within 1 business day

Bring me the migration nobody wants

Panel to panel, host to host, or the one that failed halfway last weekend and left you with two half-working servers.

Start a conversation hello@ahtshamjutt.com