What NS could benefit from (migration guides etc)

So, here’s the thing…

I have an IT company, i do IT for small businesses that have somewhere between 5 and 30 users.
What i often lack is a clear migration guide… i think NethServer could benefit from this.
as many of my collegue’s in the field, we are deploying Windows Small Business Server.
You may be aware that its mainstream support will be ending soon, and i am looking for a replacement.

one scenario would be to move to Windows 2012(or '16) and move half the stuff into the cloud (think exchange) but i have some clients who, due to privacy concerns, do not wish to do so…
That leaves either an on-premises Windows 2012 with exchange 2013 and all the wishywashy, but that would cost huge amounts of money.
Money some clients either can’t or wont pay.

The alternative is looking to Linux, which is what i am currently investigating.
NethServer, Zentyal, ClearOS, etc etc… they all seem wonderful solutions with only a quarter of the costs, if any costs at all.
However… what i have yet to find is a descent migration guide that helps me move away from Windows onto Linux.
I really feel NethServer could benefit from this, as it will allow myself and others to make the switch more easily.
I know i’m dreaming, but preferably i just say “okay, SERVER01 is the Windows server, get your stuff from there” and NethServer connects and imports the exchange data and file shares etc.
Obviously, this is not how things work, so the next best thing would be a guide, and a checklist to make sure i haven’t forgotten anything. (i shall create a draft for a checklist)

Then there’s backups. Currently i run Windows virtualised on an ESXi (vmware) server, since i have several servers running for different tasks. Let me tell you, backups are hell!
My clients dont want to leave their laptops at the office during nightime, so i am forced to either use a dedicated machine, or spend a huge amount of money on either vmware or good backup software.
I have, on the other hand, my own powerfull server at home. It would be nice if NethServer could “replicate” itself over VPN,
so i always have a descent backup-system at hand without the end user having to worry about shuffeling disks and all.
The later i am sure is allready possible, but i have not yet found a descent guide for NethServer on how to do this :frowning:
Maybe i am looking in the wrong places, i dont know… But these are my thoughts about how to make NS even better :slight_smile:

Ultimatly, i would like this topic to become the place where such migration guide gets created and shaped before we wiki it (or make a PDF out of it!) so any help/tips/idea’s anyone can offer is highly apreciated :slight_smile:
I will try to document my every step in migrating to Linux, in the hopes that others might benefit from it :slight_smile:

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HI lincee

I see different chapters, hence different issues and plenty of possible answers :slight_smile:

I would be pleased if you can do a draft of your needs, and after this, me and other will be ready to answer. I’m not skilled on windows, a bit more on linux so others skills are welcome.

Concernly backups i did two modules for the purpose of backup a laptop or the server. It is nethserver-backuppc and nethserver-urbackup.

The both you can backup over internet but it is not a replication. I must be clear on this. I thought to create a module for a rsync backup but it is close of the backuppc purpose, exept that you cannot set the time when you want to backup (each hour, each 30minutes…etc)

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did you take a look to http://docs.nethserver.org/en/latest/ha.html

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hello @stephdl thank you for responding :slight_smile:
I will look later this week to your links, and will draft something :wink:

Sorry, i have been a bit busy and i forgot to turn on notifications :open_mouth:

yeah…notification is really a killer feature in discourse :slight_smile:

Thanks for your help Jan, I can’t wait to see your contributions!

My needs are simple :slight_smile:

I have a Windows SBS 2011 server coming up for replacement.
The new server will be using PROXMOX as a hypervisor, and on this i want to run nethserver.

However, it would be helpfull if there was a migration guide like “How to migrate from Windows to nethserver” which features settings like shared folders, domain settings, email, etc etc, anything a new user could be needing.

Then, this server needs backups.
Currently my windows SBS 2011 server uses rotating USB Drives to backup, which are stored off site. In the new situation, i would prefer to backup this nethserver to another nethserver in my own network (over the internet, using site2site VPN), so the end user would not need to switch drives. ideally this backup would be a running server that could simply VPN back into the enduser’s network in case the main server fails. the HA section you pointed to earlier does not work, as it needs a shared data volume of some sorts (that, or i simply dont understand what its saying… its not n00b friendly) But allas! i cant even get VPN to work :frowning:

I know, there is a Function of Nethserver to Backup the config and another to backup the data, but because you are going to virtualize Nethserver, I would recommend a backup strategy that is based on that.
I am using Hyper-V for virtualization but there must something similar to Proxmox, hopefully.
I am backing up the complete VM using Veeam. The backup is just backing up the differences made in the VM. If I need a restore from 3 days ago, I can do it without touching anything on the Nethserver itself. I can also recover single files from within the Nethserver if I did a mistake in a configuration.

As I said: I don’t know if Proxmox can do this and if there is a software like Veeam that supports this platform, but I think this backup strategy is the simplest, fastest and most reliable for me.
Just another question for my personal interest: What are the reasons to use Proxmox and not Hyper-V, VMware or KVM (that is also a module in Nethserver)?

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Of course proxmox can do backup of vm (on local hd or remote network share). NS rocks on proxmox, I use it for my virtualisatios server, however you can also use the internal backup system

I guess that many people would appreciate a guide like that. How can we start? @docs_team @Hunv @dnutan

Sorry, I cannot help here. I use Nethserver for functions Windows don’t provide easily or for free. I don’t migrate from Windows to Nethserver.