Migrate Central from one server to another

Support
1

Hi all
I need to migrate from one server to another because my current version is very outdated, and I want to upgrade to the latest stable version.

versions:
24ee74e5f974a518aa1cc8b06e7addb3be6b4690 (v1.3.3-2-g24ee74e)
5cc6fd79d112ce36d6298c61bb8817689c4c323b client (v1.3.2)
1d1a3a59969e61383da74119e405e67778b7a170 server (v1.3.3)

What would be the best procedure to follow? I found a post that explains it, but I'm not 100% sure. I want the migration to be transparent to users so that they don't have to change anything in their forms. Is that possible?

In fact, one of the responses you’ve given me in the past issues I’ve had is to upgrade.

2

The best procedure is to take a whole machine snapshot of the old machine and restore it to a clone. Test the migration and upgrade progress on that clone. Make note of the steps you take. Once you are convinced the process works, do it again for practice, then do it again for real.

If you are changing hostnames (e.g., mycentral.example.com to odk.foo.com), I find the best way to guarantee transparent migration is to redirect the DNS of the old hostname to the new server's IP. Then manually add the old hostname to Central's nginx config.

https://github.com/getodk/central/blob/master/files/nginx/odk.conf.template#L3 will then look like...

server {
  listen 443 ssl;
  server_name ${CNAME} mycentral.example.com;
3

Thanks @yanokwa , for your response, but it's an on-premises setup. That's why my idea was to create a new server and perform a fresh installation with the latest version, and set up PostgreSQL on a separate server. I'll reinstall everything from scratch. I'm also looking for a procedure because I have an additional issue multiple-volumes-same-database