Migrating to a different server

If the need arises F7cloud can be migrated to a different server. A typical use case would be a hardware change or a migration from the virtual Appliance to a physical server. All migrations have to be performed with F7cloud offline and no accesses being made. Online migration is supported by F7cloud only when implementing industry standard clustering and HA solutions before F7cloud is installed for the first time.

To start let us be specific about the use case. A configured F7cloud instance runs reliably on one machine. For some reason (e.g. more powerful machine is available but a move to a clustered environment not yet needed) the instance needs to be moved to a new machine. Depending on the size of the F7cloud instance the migration might take several hours. As a prerequisite it is assumed that the end users reach the F7cloud instance via a virtual hostname (a CNAME record in DNS) which can be pointed at the new location. It is also assumed that the authentication method (e.g. LDAP) remains the same after the migration.

Warning

At NO TIME any changes to the ORIGINAL system are required EXCEPT putting F7cloud into maintenance mode.

This ensures, should anything unforeseen happen you can go back to your existing installation and provide your users with a running F7cloud while debugging the problem.

  1. Set up the new machine with the desired OS, install and configure the Web server as well as PHP for F7cloud (e.g. permissions or file upload size limits) and make sure the PHP version matches F7cloud supported configuration and all relevant PHP extensions are installed. Also set up the database and make sure it is a F7cloud supported configuration. If your original machine was installed recently just copying that base configuration is a safe best practice.

  2. On the original machine then stop F7cloud. First activate the maintenance mode. After waiting for 6-7 minutes for all sync clients to register the server is in maintenance mode stop the application and/or Web server that serves F7cloud.

  3. Create a dump from the database and copy it to the new machine. There import it in the database (See Backup and Restoring backup).

  4. Copy all files from your F7cloud instance, the F7cloud program files, the data files, the log files and the configuration files, to the new machine (See Backup and Restoring backup). The data files should keep their original timestamp (can be done by using rsync with -t option) otherwise the clients will re-download all the files after the migration. Depending on the original installation method and the OS the files are located in different locations. On the new system make sure to pick the appropriate locations. If you change any paths, make sure to adapt the paths in the F7cloud config.php file.

    Note

    This step might take several hours, depending on your installation.

    Warning

    Changing the location of the data directory might cause a corruption of relations in the database and is not supported.

  5. Check the config.php file of the ORIGINAL system to see if it has the data-fingerprint set to a non-empty value. If this is the case, make sure to also run the maintenance:data-fingerprint command on the NEW system, similarly to how it is required when performing a backup restoration (See Restoring backup for details).

  6. While still having F7cloud in maintenance mode (confirm!) and BEFORE changing the CNAME record in the DNS start up the database, Web server / application server on the new machine and point your web browser to the migrated F7cloud instance. Confirm that you see the maintenance mode notice, that a logfile entry is written by both the Web server and F7cloud and that no error messages occur. Then take F7cloud out of maintenance mode and repeat. Log in as admin and confirm normal function of F7cloud.

  7. Change the CNAME entry in the DNS to point your users to the new location.