Site Import under a root user fails: failed to execute commands with the web RPC agent

Symptoms

• Site Import started under a root user fails:

  PLESK_ERROR: Unable to migrate the website: failed to execute commands with the web RPC agent.
  Possible reasons:
  1. PHP is disabled for the source site. Make sure that PHP is enabled and operational on the source website.
  2. PHP version is less than 5.2. Upgrade PHP to version >= 5.2 to migrate the website.
  3. There are rewrite rules in effect (e.g. mod_rewrite configured with the .htaccess file) making the web RPC agent inaccessible. Temporarily disable the rewrite rules to migrate the website.

• Direct SSH connection to the source server under the root user works fine:

  # ssh root@203.0.113.2

• The following error is found at Domains > example.com > Logs on a source server:

  CONFIG_TEXT: AH01071: Got error 'PHP message: PHP Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: Permission denied in Unknown on line 0\nUnable to open primary script: /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/plesk-migrator-agent-h014yeripgi6xjthrb1bb0kpn8m0ra3z/index.php(Permission denied)\n'

Cause

Site Import does not work for the root user, only for SSH web users or FTP users that are assigned to the source domain.

Resolution

Use SSH web user or FTP user to import the site using Site Import feature.