Tutorial Series

How To Migrate to a New Linux Server

How To Migrate to a New Linux Server

Introduction

Migrating to a new server can be a complex and involved task. Not only do you have to transfer the data itself to a new location, you also have to replicate the service environment and ensure that your components interact as you expect them to.

In this series, we will take you through the steps needed to migrate an existing installation to a new server. Follow along to start developing your migration plan.

Summary View
detailed View

Series Tutorials

Tutorial

There are many different considerations you should make when migrating from one system to another. In this guide, we will discuss how to prepare your source and target systems for a migration. This will include getting your two machines to communicate with SSH keys and a deep investigation as to what components need to be transferred.

Tutorial

In the previous tutorial, we prepped our servers for data migration. At this point, your target and source system should be able to communicate (the target system should have SSH access to the source system), and you should also have a list of software and services that you need to transfer, complete with version numbers of the most important components. In this guide, we’ll continue where we left off and begin the actual migration to our new server.

Tutorial

In the last tutorial of this series, we will finish up our migration by transferring users, groups, mail, crontabs, and other settings over to our new server.

Check out all our Tutorial Series

Try DigitalOcean for free

Click below to sign up and get $200 of credit to try our products over 60 days!

Sign up

Become a contributor for community

Get paid to write technical tutorials and select a tech-focused charity to receive a matching donation.

DigitalOcean Documentation

Full documentation for every DigitalOcean product.

Resources for startups and SMBs

The Wave has everything you need to know about building a business, from raising funding to marketing your product.

Get our newsletter

Stay up to date by signing up for DigitalOcean’s Infrastructure as a Newsletter.

New accounts only. By submitting your email you agree to our Privacy Policy

The developer cloud

Scale up as you grow — whether you're running one virtual machine or ten thousand.

Get started for free

Sign up and get $200 in credit for your first 60 days with DigitalOcean.*

*This promotional offer applies to new accounts only.