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Silver's Weblog - How Not to Migrate a Server

How Not to Migrate a Server

E-mail people at 6PM saying the server will be offline as of 10AM the next day.
The next day, find out that the new server doesn't want to work with the disks from the old server.
Overwrite the partition table on one of the disks.
Spend hours backing up the data and rewriting the partition table by hand.
The next day, copy data and install new server into limited-access server room.
While remotely migrating setup, remove /etc/passwd file (thus preventing all remote access).
Wait 3 days to gain physical access to the machine.
Slowly start setting up everything.
Have users find out that some of the services are now running different software and didn't have their data migrated over.

Things which could have been better:

Advanced notice of migration. Server migration is never simple, advertising it the night before is seriously inadequate for most people.
Notice of which services, if any, will not be migrated exactly as-is, and how the decision was made.
Setting up existing services on the new server prior to the swap.

Even now, the server still isn't running all services correctly, but hopefully it will be soon. I look forward to receiving mail via the new server, 4 days after it was supposed to be all working. ;-)

Permalink | Author: Silver | Tags: CompSoc | Posted: 05:51PM on Monday, 09 July, 2007 | Comments: 0

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