Move from NS7 to NS8 - What will I be missing?

Hello @support_team,

I’m a heavy user of NS7 for my small office. It’s been working great for us for many years now. But I’m very concerned with the upgrade process from 7-8. I see may success stories but I’ve also read of issues too. The amount of resources needed now to run NS8 may be much greater than what I’ve allocated to my NS7 VM (8 CPU and 16 GB of Ram).

The list of Apps we depend on from NS7 are:
Domain (AD)
Mail (my employees love Webtop!)
ejabberd
Nextcloud
File Server (various mapped drives in AD)

As well we have implemented other apps such as:
ClamScan
Crontab manager
Fail2Ban

Like I said we rely heavily on Nethserver for all our Office needs! How will the move to NS8 work for us? Can I assume the upgrade will allow all my apps to keep working or will I lose functions as they are not included in NS8?

Any advice for me on how best to approach this upgrade and what I can expect to lose in services would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Just to help: I confirm NS8 with quite a decent load (Apps, Storage, etc) will run just fine with 8 CPU and 16 GB of Ram.
I have clients with higher load (Not using Webtop) but more & heavier Apps.

If you want to discuss options / strategies, starting points, drop me a PM.
You can clarify my questions about hardware / environment and I can clarify yours.
Any results we can post here for the benefit of the community.
My invitation stands. :slight_smile:

My 2 cents
Andy

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Hello @Andy_Wismer ,

Wow! Thanks very much for your offer of help!!! I was away for a long weekend so I apologize for not responding sooner. I will send you a PM to get some starting help…whatever I learn I will be sure to share with the community.

Thank you!

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Hello @support_team or @mrmarkuz or @Andy_Wismer

I’m finally getting around to NS8 for our office. I’ve been running NS7 for a while very successfully but it’s starting to fail on me.

I currently have Nextcloud, Webtop, ejabberd, domain, shared folders, clamscan and crontab installed as apps on my NS7. I’ve been reading many posts and I’m wondering if it might be cleaner to just install NS8 new.

What OS would you all recommend? Rocky or Debian? I see both are supported now. But in your opinions, is one better for supporting NS8?

Thank you.

Hi @greavette

Actually, only Rocky is supported by having a subscription, others are only with “community” support.
Rocky’s only claim to fame is this, on their Website:

Now, if Rocky is a “source clone” of Red Hat - what exactly is the community intensively developing in the sense of Rocky Linux? Certainly not any code, as this comes 1:1 from Red Hat. Maybe a more intellectual use of “hot air”?

I am clearly team Debian, even if there is no option for a subscription for NS8. I’ve been using Debian since before Red Hat arrived - and since Red Hat has been singing the “big” blues, I do not trust anything from Red Hat…

None of my clients have any use for RHEL compatibility, none run any applications that could require RHEL features… (SAP, Oracle, many others).

All of my clients use NS8 based on Debian, running on Proxmox. Since version 12, Debian recognizes a virtual install, and includes the qemu-guest-agent already when installing, Rocky, AFAIK not.


Migrating your NS7 setup will save a lot of work, as migrating Account Provider, Samba, NextCloud and Mail can be a lot of work, depending on how customized your setup is.

My rule of thumb is generally: 10+ users → Migrate if possible. Less than 10 users, manual migration is also possible.

As per here:

https://docs.nethserver.org/projects/ns8/en/latest/migration.html

the following of your apps in NS7 would need manual migration:
WebTop, ejabberd, clamscan and crontab.

The migration tool can not handle (yet) those apps and their config / data.

I would also strongly suggest to use virtualization (Proxmox)!
This gives me peace of mind with disaster recovery, backups, offsite backups - and even in disaster recovery situations never to have to worry about hardware or drivers!

When doing the migration, I would additionally suggest making backups at every step.

As always when changing a system: Good Luck!

→ Even the best Sysadmin doesn’t really need a power outage at 99% of the migration…
:slight_smile:

My 2 cents
Andy

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Hello @Andy_Wismer ,

As always I very much appreciate your input into my questions…Thank You!

I think I may need good luck…based on the many posts I’m seeing I’m not looking forward to this migration.

I’m more familiar with Debian so I’ll be installing my NS8 on Debian 12. I also run all our services locally on a Proxmox Cluster (fully updated and patched) and I have PBS installed for nightly backups. So I totally agree…I will be backing up my NS7 fully before I attempt any upgrade so I can roll-back if needed.

It sounds like you’ve converted more than few Nethserver 7 to NS8. How was your experience? I have a fairly small office but we have a lot of emails. We also have a fair amount of data we save on our Netherver 7 shared folders for employees to access. Our staff likes and is familiar with Webtop and we also have a domain for our windows VM’s to login (which also helps me Administer through the domain).

Based on all the issues I’m seeing in the forums, is it better (maybe not easier or quicker) to install NS8 new and just setup my NS8 as new and move (imapsync) my mail and copy over all my shared folder and Nextcloud files to the new NS8? I’m not looking forward to waiting perhaps more than 24 hours for the migrations from NS7 to NS8 to fail where I’d have to start over again.

Any advice for me regarding your experiences with migrating from NS7 to NS8 would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

@greavette

Hi Charles

If you could give me a few rough infos, I can provide a few hints…

How many users do you have
How many groups?
Total mail volume?
Total size of NS7
Total size of File Server shares

Any potential “Over-Users”?
I have about three or four such “extreme” users.

Typical traits:
Firefox: 1 to several Windows open, each with 30-100 Tabs
Word/Excell: 30-50 documents open, hardly ever any closed for days or weeks on end.
Mail (No matter if Outlook or Thunderbird or Whatever) 20-100 Mails open. Hardly any ever closed or saved!

Yes, not everywhere, but such people (over-users!) do exist. :slight_smile:

A rough estimate would do.
If you do not want this info public, post it via a PM, I’ll anwser correspondingly.

I have converted 10 productive NS7 from my clients and my own home server.
All from a range of 1-30 users.
My largest NS8:



And this is the largest, a 1.5 TB NS8 VM…


At both clients a VM NAS (OMV) takes of the largest shares. This is set up with AD integration as “Member Server” so I can use AD groups for shares. These Shares are also used for NextCloud Shares. All NextCloud Shares are normal Samba Shares, some on NS8, some on OMV, others on Synology. This allows normal use via Windows Shares, and external or mobile use via Smartphones / Tablets with the NC Client.

This is the largest:


In case you’re wondering why the shown NS8 has the somewhat unusual disk size of 1115 GB…
If you follow my install HowTo

I use a single Disk (BtrFS!) and the “whole disk” option. This gives me - for example above a 1100 GB Disk - with a measly 1 GB Swap partition. I want at least 16 GB Swap on all Debian Servers.

  • After the minimal install, I shut down the VM.
  • Enlarge the disk by 16 GB (exclusively for swap)
  • Boot the VM from ISO, using the latest SystemRescue ISO
  • Start the GUI with startx
  • Use Gpartx to enlarge the extended disk to use the additional 16 GB
  • do the same for the actual swap partition
  • Hit Apply.
  • Check the results - should be all OK.
  • Shutdown the VM (Simply log out!)
  • Change the boot order to use the Disk instead of ISO to boot, and also remove the ISO
  • Boot with NS8

Verify that NS8 is using the larger swap.
Do a Backup!

Now you’re ready to start migration!

You should use a SSD based disk instead of Spinners, at least for the System.

One of the reasons I “Offload” large shares to a AD integrated OMV NAS is Backup times, especially after a Kernel Update on Proxmox, this needs a reboot of Proxmox PVE. This entails a full backup on all VMs. These large VMs, over 1 TB can easily take 2-4 hours for a full Backup.
I do backups over lunch, so I must make sure the next day an incremental will be used for lunchtime backups. (15 Minutes for the huge site! For Full Backup, that VM NAS takes about 4 hours - for 8.5 TB, not too bad. But way too long for Lunchtime!)

→ If any Proxmox needs a reboot, I will manually trigger a full Backup to PBS, so any following Backup will again be incremental.

As you’re using Proxmox, make a full Backup (Snapshots are NOT independant!) and you’re on the safe side.

→ Generally, the migration tool as improved each time I used it. In the BETA phase, and for messy NS7 setups (less than 10 users) I did a manual migration.
Today, I would suggest using the Migration tool - at least for just Samba and File Server (They go together!).
But generally, the migration tool works better and better, so I’ld suggest do attempt 2 tries!

→ Make sure your DNS entries are in place for NS8 and whatever virtual hosts you might need. Don’t forget:
https://ns8.domain.com/nextcloud
will not work anymore, use something like
https://cloud.domain.com

Have your Windows Admin PC (with RSAT Tools installed) handy when you are ready to test and do fine settings in AD DNS and such!

I do not use WebTop (Nextcloud for Adressbooks and Calendars, Roundcube for Webmail), but as I’ve heard, it works better using IMAP / SMTP for Mail, and Sync for Adressbooks and Calendars. Using Sync for Mail is not quite as stable…

Offhand, I think I’ve got the major Tips and Tricks outside of that HowTo.

( Motivation / Humor ON)
Take the whole migration with a grain of humor and salt, the gaulish way (As in Asterix and Obelix!)

  • I’ve got the brains to plan this
  • I’ve got the familiarization with Debian to make this work
  • I’ve got the time and fingers needed to do the job
  • And lastly, the wisdom to know I don’t need to know everything, but I know who to ask!

:slight_smile:

I’m quite sure @mrmarkuz or myself will get you migrated to NS8!
( Motivation / Humor OFF)

Hope these help.

My 2 cents
Andy

PS:

If at any time you want to use a subscription (or even just for testing!), you can!

  • Setup a Rocky VM analog your NS8 Debian.
  • Join it to the cluster.
  • Migrate all Apps and AD / Fileserver to the Rocky based VM.
  • Shut down the Debian based one.
  • Reboot NS8 on Rocky.
  • Register for a subscription (Test or Productive).

Proxmox makes it easy, eg on a an isolated node or segment to test this independantly!
As always, better a backup too many
than one too little!

:slight_smile:

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Hello Andy,

Wow! I love this detail! Thanks very much for sharing! I’ve reviewed your setup and I use Proxmox with local storage (ZFS). I’m curious why you are using scsi for your storage. I use virtio as I thought this had better performance.

In answer to some of your questions:

I’ve installed my new NS8 on Debian 12 now. I’ve created a cluster and I can login to my new NS8.

I’m curious…will the migration from NS7 to NS8 move all files/folders/mail/domain accounts/my domain? A friend has tried a few times to migrate from NS7 to NS8 and not everything moved. I see others on the forums having issues as well. I’d like to prepare myself for the task ahead if I have to move all my mail and files manually after the NS7 to NS8 migration is complete.

Not sure what you mean by heaving users, but I do use my file shares from workstations shared by many people. They will store their files they use daily in their tasks. I also save our SQL database backups into the file folder so they are quite large (I keep 7 days and they are 3GB each).

Before I’m ready to try a migrate (over a weekend of course), I will fully back up my existing NS7 KVM in case something becomes broken.

Are these the best instructions to use on how to migrate each app from NS7 to my new NS8? Is this an app-by-app process or will the migration app I install on my NS7 allow me to pick any/all my apps to be migrated to my NS8?

Thank you.

Good Morning Charles

VirtIO does not provide for a “VirtIO Virtual Connection”. SCSI is then used (SATA is not an Option in “Virtual”, this also uses SCSI).
I also use VirtIO, which results in a virtual SCSI Controller, using VirtIO SCSI… :slight_smile:

Network is also VirtIO. For Servers and Workstations, I avoid using “Balloon memory”, this is never a good idea anywhere where SQL can be used!

I’ld choose Q35 as Machine Type, not the 15 years older “Default i440fx”. Q35 is from around 2008, i440fx is from around 1990!.

Tip: This can be changed on Linux easily, even after installation - not so on Windows… :wink:
But DO shutdown the OS and start anew!

I’ld also suggest starting out with a 300 GB Virtual Disk! Keep this as single disk, until NS8 is ready to use a second disk, it will be coming :slight_smile:


The Migration offers you a step by step, and you can ignore / stepover any Apps you do not want to migrate (Or do manually!).

Generally all users, groups, apps and data files will be moved!

Mailboxes are owned by users or groups, but a user can have more than one Mailbox.


VM Disk Settings in Proxmox:

Set the disk caching as follows

Only after updating and migration, (and Backup!), and everything works as expected. then you can try this

This needs a shutdown and start, a reboot will not suffice correctly!


For your System, t’s almost of identical size as mine at home:

If possible, allocate 8 cores (1 socket) for your NS8, my Proxmox here only has 4 cores (A low powered Odroid H3+…).


This is not really sensible or even needed. Even NS7 first made a local backup, then “pushed” that file to whatever Backup location NS7 was using… (Duplicity, Rsync, Restic).

Don’t forget, with PBS you can retrieve ANY file, also the local SQL Backup Dump (All of them individually!) - you just have to know where they are. Mostly under /users/APP-Name-Number/whatever).

If you do want a separate backup of the actual SQL dumps, it would best to push them to a NAS for storage! (Way more efficient!).
NAS: Mount with NFS, If you have Rsync support, use Rsync!

Depending on System and IO speed of your host, I’ld suggest to plan in about 4-8 hours for File-Server and AD together. These two always go together, and are the last to migrate.

Mail and Nextcloud generally go faster!


Post Migration

Your NS7 will still be running, now using the AD in NS8 as account provider!
This will provide users for all Apps not migrated, so can still be used until you’ve migrated all stuff you want. If you do not have any further use for your old NS7, it can be shut down (Keep it archived for 6-12 Months in PBS or Whatever!).

NS8 will now be your AD and Account Provider.

So adapt the DNS settings locally AND in AD (Using RSat).

To access the file server, use the name shown in AD:


This image is from a client server. My home server was migrated from NS7, but still during Beta phase and a bit messy in the end. So I did a complete new installation, with new AD - also to reflect the correct site (r9.). So it can’t be considered migrated. This one IS migrated and running over one year now!

On any Workstation in the Domain, use

\\NSDC-SUMA-DB012\SHARE-NAME

Note: This is a “random” Name. It’s always as follows:

NSDC - XXXX - RANDOM

Adapt as needed!

BTW: The AD in NS7 had it’s own IP, different from NS7 itself. In NS8, AD uses the IP of NS8.
Samba itself will not always react to the NS8 DNS name for mounting, but will react to the correct AD name quickly!
Don’t forget to reflect this in DNS!


A data share on the NAS, intended for Backups, as a suggestion how to structure this…

I use a 20 year old rsync script , adapted for each of my clients, and run daily to achieve this.
And yes, the master script has been adapted over time… :slight_smile:

All my clients (and all their users) have read only access here.
They can allocate the backup file they need themselves, and copy it back to productive locations themselves.

No Cryptollocker can manipulate any of these files, the NAS does NOT allocate any R/W permissions to AD users. The admin has a different Password than the domain admin!


In case you’re wondering about the Novell_NetWare folder:

For me, this client started out with Novell-Netware and Coaxial 20 years ago!
At first NW311, I migrated to NW411, then to NW5.1, NW6, and finally NW 6.5.
The first were native installs, from NW 5.1 running as VMs in VMWare.
The VMWare was a native install first, now it exists for archival reasons.
Neware 6.0 and 6.5 are still both available, and run as VMs (still in VMWare), and VMWare runs as a Hyper-Virtualised Hypervisor, running on Proxmox!

This is a financial services company (Called Treuhand here locally) and needs this for the 10 year legal requirement.
The matching XP Client is also available, as Terminal Server with multiple users, in case it’s ever needed.
The data and App has long been migrated to a dedicated Linux Server.


I ought to be available when migrating, so ping me for help if needed.

Good Backup, Good Luck and Good Migration!

My 2 cents
Andy

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