Topic: migrate to new server

[frank3427]

I have been running sme6.0-01 for a long time and I now have a new server that I am build ing and would like to move all the accounts to the new server. I am looking to build an sme7 server.

Can someone provide help on some best practices? I am looking to maintain all the emails from sme6 to sme7.

Has anyone successfully upgraded from 6.0-01 to sme7 or am I just dreaming?

Thanks in advance
Frank

[djhomeless]

There are a load of procedures you could follow, just search around you'll find quite a lot.

I recently did the same move you are looking to do and I had no problems. The complexity is down to the size of your data. Also, when backing up to desktop, make 100% sure that you verify the file. That is really really important.

One thing I wished I did may sound convoluted, but it makes sense.

1. Backup ibays manually.
2. Delete ibays
3. Backup to desktop
4. Verify
5. Restore on new server
6. Re-create ibays manually.
7. Restore ibay data.

The backup process does save the ibay data, but if you have a lot of files and scripts in your ibays, it can take a while. My backup file was only 560 meg, and half of that was just Ibay data. The backup/restore process took, easily, 5 hours to do (though my server is a poky 600 mhz).

Anyway, search around and find the process you feel most comfortable with.

[dmajwool]

When I tried this migration, I did pretty much what djhomeless suggests and it resulted in a broken v7 server because all the customisation rpms on the v6 server were restored onto the v7 server.

It's impractical IMO to say "uninstall rpms before backup" because this decommissions the v6 installation before the v7 machine is proven and can come into service.

I would appreciate an alternative migration method that migrates users, groups and email only.  Is this feasible?

[ElFroggio]

That will depend on wether you are doing a new SME 7 or upgrading.

If you are doing a NEW server:

Do NOT copy the following files but extract the names and groups.

1. Extract the usernames from /etc/passwd and the groups from /etc/group. You will need to add the new ones that are not in the new server. You will then prompted to update the shadow files.
2. Copy the users directories to the new server.
3. Assign the users rights to the users directories.
4. The users will have to re-mark their  emails as read.
5. Create the ibays manually and, depending on what's in the ibays, copy them to the new server [if it's data], programs/extensions should be reinstalled.

It took me 3 hours to do a new server with 50 users, but 1 week of preparation for the move. Had to get all the users passwords, aliases, files to keep...

[jfarschman]

Hi,

  You can also use the LAT (Lazy Admin Tools).  They have a little trouble working on SME7 and will give you errors until you map over the DB locations with symlinks.

# ln -s /home/e-smith/db/accounts /home/e-smith/accounts
# ln -s /home/e-smith/db/configuration /home/e-smith/configuration
# ln -s /home/e-smith/db/domains /home/e-smith/domains
# ln -s /home/e-smith/db/hosts /home/e-smith/hosts
# ln -s /home/e-smith/db/networks /home/e-smith/networks

  Then perform a lat-dump and move your users groups file over to the new server and load these.  You can probably manually enter all the other entries.... and manually restore the ibays from some other location on your network.

  We just did this yesterday... and aside from a problem overwriting /var/lib/mysql dbs with old structures things went well.