My experience with NS8 migration module

Sorry for the rant, guys, I don’t like being negative.

BUT

My experience to migrate a very simple NS7 installation to NS8 is a complete failure.

  • First of all, the whole process looks extremely fragile and error prone, the script clearly lacks fault tolerance and robustness.
  • It should be largely emphasized that the user MUST NOT touch ANYTHING on the NS8 side until everything is migrated… if it succeeds. Any little things not expected by the migration tool leads to a failure in the migration process.
  • After numerous tries (restarting from scratch) and almost as much failures I decided to stop my efforts.
  • The github page mention a manual rollback feature allowing a user to “cancel” the migration once it’s done. Sadly, it doesn’t work so well : my sogo instance wasn’t working anymore, users could not login.

At the moment, it was then end of the day, I had the feeling that I had already lost way too much time.

So I decided to quickly restore the snapshot of the source machine I had just done using Hetzner’s console tool. Of course this failed and rendered my server not bootable. Now I’m completely pissed off and need to completely restore a server from backup. Thank you everybody, my NS7 was perfectly working for years.

I’m deeply sorry but this migration tool is not mature at all, it’s not even a beta version.

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And guess what ? Disaster recovery doesn’t work at all anymore… Probably because Centos Repo were deactivated months ago.

I’m done with this. Sorry folks, it was great but I lost confidence.

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You’re not a new kid on the block, so I consider your (bad) experiences being very seriously!

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Why? What didn’t work?

I tested installing NS7 from ISO and it’s able to update because it uses Nethserver repos which are still alive.

A working repo file can be found here.

my NS7 was perfectly working for years

Yes, unfortunately it is being difficult to find a successor that can compete with NS7…

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To be clear. I don’t blame anybody directly. Just expressing my frustration and trying to shed the light on an ongoing situation.

I remember having discussed the migration issue already one year ago with @stephdl, stating that at that time there was no viable migration path. It is still not the case.

Beside this, I’m currently quickly building a new server (to replace the dead NS7 :slightly_frowning_face:) and I find NS8 really nice.

Indeed. Restoring the configuration worked as far as I can tell. Then I restored the data backup and after that nothing worked anymore. repos were empty or not responding, user data not present (though present on disk).

I really don’t have the time to investigate sadly.

I experienced a great deal of almost similar issue with one of my servers.

the server hosts nextcloud and email.

After attempting migration and it failed, for reasons i do not understand to date, I am unable to access webmail, as well as nextcloud. Even SSL certs refuse to renew.
Although Emails still work i am forced to use SMTP mail clients, Havent been able to access nextcloud ever since,

So i am waiting at a time when i can be able to retry the migration, and if all Fails, do a manual migration. in NS7, there was a way to import EMail files exported by outlook, am not sure if the ability is still valid for NS8.

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You can use imapsync to migrate emails between two NethServer

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between ns7 and NS8. How did i miss that. thank you. will try it.

We need logs, this thread does not help somebody. I know you are a professional mathieu so it does not work is not enough

If you failed to migrate sogo, a corrupted database could be a clue…

Thanks Steph,

I wasn’t asking for support nor helping anybody. I just wanted to report my experience with the migration tool. I didn’t provide logs because I honestly consider that it is a loss of time given the obvious beta nature of the module and the fact that I currently have a limited time for this.

I feel that this part of the work has been a bit overlooked, and that existing users are left with no real option to migrate to NS8 without too much fuss. I feel a bit "betrayed’ as a long time user. First you decided to cancel the development of an in-place upgrade feature - bold choice but I’m ready to support it -, now I discover that the migration will take hours if not days for complex systems.

The automated process looks way too complicated and opaque to me. Before having an automated tool I would really prefer to have a set of reliable scripts to manually migrate a system, step by step, with clear logs and visibility of what happens in order to be able to solve things if it fails. I don’t care being assisted to create a VPN connection between systems and everything.

Also the migration tool should NOT touch the source system in any way ! It is the responsibility of the sysop to update DNS pointers to finalize the migration process… and to revert if things go bad.

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Bold? On the contrary, it’s so to avoid the risk of spending many development hours on something that in the end is useless:

You already have it: just look at the import-module actions implementation and at the tool code. They are a good starting point.

This is exactly what that tool does, and it is written in the administrator manual. Only the “revert” part is documented in the tool readme, as it is intended for developers because the tool should be bug-free.

Beta nature? When can we consider a migration procedure stable enough? If you can’t bear the risks of a migration do not start it.

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Amen.

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I’m so sorry for your problems Matthieu we worked a lot on our migration tool and many many users and Nethesis resellers are using it to switch from NS7 to NS8 successfully.

I’m sure that it could be not so flawless since version 8 is a totally different beast

I feel your pain don’t worry.

Happy to read this one, let us know how we can help you to use 8

Please help us to help you as @stephdl already told you

Otherwise, a discussion like that, without additional details, is good only to scare new people to migrate. Please help the community to make it useful for anyone.

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The truth is that the answer has left me stunned.
Of course! We have changed everything, our tool fails more than a fairground shotgun, in the forum there are only posts about errors in the migration process, more than half of the work has to be done manually, when an administrator needs to have his work made easier; not to have problems caused…
But no, find a way to migrate to NS8 or rot in hell with an insecure NS7.
Of course, every day I am becoming more disillusioned with this project.
It seems that always, the only answer is the same: now it is like this and that’s it. If you like it, fine, if not, good luck…

The only thing I get clear from all this is that if I want to go back to having the same thing I had before, I need either more equipment, or virtualize everything (and go on with it) and necessarily have at least 2 instances. An NS8 and NethSecurity. This added to everything I’ve said before, either you start from scratch configuring a new server or better forget it.

and many many users and Nethesis resellers are using it to switch from NS7 to NS8 successfully

Sorry, but :rofl:
Well, what a coincidence that none of them have published their positive experience. They are all negative experiences

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It is good security practise to Seprate Firewall and Business Application, anwhere in the world. NS8 does you the favour.

Building Migration for Any software system of Platform, is extremely hard, and by no chance, easy. Ask Microsft with their windows migration. it was painful for many users, and over time it got better, but still with issues.

MOSt things, Except from Firewall on the server side, can be migrated to a new server manually, however, NS8 migration tool is provided for convenience. Different systems Have different architectures, and different business have different use cases.

i togethe rwith a few members of my team, build NS8 Apps, the reason i began building apps, is that i realised, my setup is vastly different than what others have, and a standard migration might not be feasible, equally the tools i was running on my instance, most of them not many people were using. and the solution was to build them for NS8.

Any way, i would benefit, and the community at large would benefit.

The community provides BEST LEVL SUPPORT, however, if your use is business ciritical, and you have been unable to handle things, wouldn’t it be a good thing to get a support License plan, that way, the devs may help you with your issues, its win win, you get to migrate successfully with ease, the organization receives needed revenue for the project you rely on.

be a good thing to get a support License plan

Aha!!

A good listener, few words

Because people are more used to share bad news that good news :slight_smile:
but there are some of the here

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