migrate dedibox to elastic metal

Transferring your data from Dedibox to Elastic Metal

Reviewed on 16 August 2023 • Published on 25 January 2022

compute
dedibox
elastic-metal
transfer
migration

Migrating your data from a Dedibox to an Elastic Metal server

This tutorial provides information about how to migrate your existing data from a Dedibox to an Elastic Metal server. Its purpose is to guide you in your migration to the resources that best fit your needs for improved stability, performance, and reliability.

We use Duplicity to encrypt the backup and to upload it to Object Storage. Then we download and decrypt the data on the Elastic Metal server.

Security & Identity (IAM):

You may need certain IAM permissions to carry out some actions described on this page. This means:

you are the Owner of the Scaleway Organization in which the actions will be carried out, or
you are an IAM user of the Organization, with a policy granting you the necessary permission sets

Requirements:

You have an account and are logged into the Scaleway console
You have configured your SSH key
You have a Dedibox server
You have created and installed an Elastic Metal server.

Creating an Object Storage bucket

Log in to the Scaleway console.
Click Storage on the side menu. A list of your buckets appears. If you have not created a bucket yet, the list will be empty.
Click Create a Bucket.
Name your bucket and validate your bucket creation. The bucket name must be unique and contain only alphanumeric and lowercase characters.

Installing software requirements on the Dedibox server

Note:

To make sure we can generate a GPG Key, we need to create some entropy. We suggest using Haveged constantly on your server to generate a small amount of entropy.

Run the following command to update the APT package manager, upgrade the software installed already installed on the server and to download and install Duplicity:

apt update && apt upgrade
apt install -y python3-boto python3-pip haveged gettext librsync-dev
wget https://launchpad.net/duplicity/1.0/1.2.3/+download/duplicity-1.2.3.tar.gz
tar xaf duplicity-1.2.*.tar.gz
cd duplicity-1.2.*/
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
python3 setup.py install

Tip:

In the command above we download Duplicity version 1.2.3. Check the Duplicity website for the latest version of the tool.

Creating a GPG key

To generate the GPG key, launch this command.
```
gpg --full-generate-key
```
Enter a passphrase. You will be asked to define the characteristics of your key. We will go with default settings:
- What kind of key you want: (1) RSA and RSA (default)
- What keysize do you want: (3072)
- How long the key should be valid: 0 = key does not expire
- GPG will then ask how to call your key, an address, and a description.

You need to use the GPG Key fingerprint, it could be an 8, 16 or 40 char long hash. You can also find the fingerprint of your key with the command:

gpg --list-keys
gpg: checking the trustdb
gpg: marginals needed: 3  completes needed: 1  trust model: pgp
gpg: depth: 0  valid: 1  signed: 0  trust: 0-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 1u
/home/me/.gnupg/pubring.kbx
------------------------------
pub   rsa3072 2022-01-25 [SC]
XXXXXXXXXXXXX-FINGERPRINT-XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
uid         [ultimate] backups (Scaleway Object Storage backups) <me@scaleway.com>
sub   rsa3072 2022-01-25 [E]

Transferring the PGP key to the Elastic Metal server

Export the keys so you can decrypt your files on the Elastic Metal server. Also having the GPG private and public keys stored somewhere else will come in handy in case you lose access to your machine. Export the GPG keys with:
```
gpg --export-secret-key keyname > ~/my-key.asc
```
Transfer the key to the Elastic Metal server using rsync.
```
scp /root/my-key.asc root@<elastic-metal>:/root/
```

Backing up your Dedibox

Create the required folders and a configuration file for Duplicity:

touch scw-backup.sh .scw-configrc
chmod 700 scw-backup.sh
chmod 600 .scw-configrc
mkdir -p /var/log/duplicity
touch /var/log/duplicity/logfile{.log,-recent.log}

Add the following lines to .scw-configrc:

# Scaleway credentials keys
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="<SCALEWAY ACCESS KEY>"
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="<SCALEWAY SECRET ACCESS KEY>"
export SCW_BUCKET="s3://s3.fr-par.scw.cloud/<NAME OF YOUR BUCKET>"
# GPG Key information
export PASSPHRASE="<YOUR GPG KEY PASSPHRASE>"
export GPG_FINGERPRINT="<YOUR GPG KEY FINGERPRINT>"
# Folder to back up
export SOURCE="<PATH TO FOLDER TO BACKUP>"
# Log files
export LOGFILE_RECENT="/var/log/duplicity/logfile-recent.log"
export LOGFILE="/var/log/duplicity/logfile.log"
log () {
  date=`date +%Y-%m-%d`
  hour=`date +%H:%M:%S`
  echo "$date $hour $*" >> ${LOGFILE_RECENT}
}
export -f log

Copy the following script to scw-backup.sh:

#!/bin/bash
source <FULL PATH TO>/.scw-configrc
currently_backuping=$(ps -ef | grep duplicity  | grep python | wc -l)
if [ $currently_backuping -eq 0 ]; then
  # Clear the recent log file
  cat /dev/null > ${LOGFILE_RECENT}
  log ">>> creating and uploading backup to Object Storage"
  duplicity \
  full \
  --asynchronous-upload \
  --encrypt-key=${GPG_FINGERPRINT} \
  --sign-key=${GPG_FINGERPRINT} \
  ${SOURCE} ${SCW_BUCKET} >> ${LOGFILE_RECENT} 2>&1
  cat ${LOGFILE_RECENT} >> ${LOGFILE}
fi

Run the backup:
```
./scw-backup.sh
```

Check if everything went well:

cat /var/log/duplicity/logfile-recent.log

Restoring data on your Elastic Metal server

Install the required prerequisites and duplicity on the Elastic Metal server:

apt update && apt upgrade
apt install -y python3-boto python3-pip gettext librsync-dev
wget https://launchpad.net/duplicity/0.8-series/0.8.21/+download/duplicity-0.8.21.tar.gz
tar xaf duplicity-0.8.*.tar.gz
cd duplicity-0.8.*/
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
python3 setup.py install

Import the GPG key on the Elastic Metal server:
```
gpg --import my-key.asc
```

Create the required folders and a configuration file for Duplicity:

touch scw-restore.sh .scw-configrc
chmod 700 scw-restore.sh
chmod 600 .scw-configrc
mkdir -p /var/log/duplicity
touch /var/log/duplicity/logfile{.log,-recent.log}

Add the following lines to .scw-configrc:

# Scaleway credentials keys
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID="<SCALEWAY ACCESS KEY>"
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="<SCALEWAY SECRET ACCESS KEY>"
export SCW_BUCKET="s3://s3.fr-par.scw.cloud/<NAME OF YOUR BUCKET>"
# GPG Key information
export PASSPHRASE="<YOUR GPG KEY PASSPHRASE>"
export GPG_FINGERPRINT="<YOUR GPG KEY FINGERPRINT>"
# Folder to back up
export SOURCE="<PATH TO FOLDER TO BACKUP>"
# Log files
export LOGFILE_RECENT="/var/log/duplicity/logfile-recent.log"
export LOGFILE="/var/log/duplicity/logfile.log"
log () {
  date=`date +%Y-%m-%d`
  hour=`date +%H:%M:%S`
  echo "$date $hour $*" >> ${LOGFILE_RECENT}
}
export -f log

Edit the file scw-restore.sh, and add the following:

#!/bin/bash
source .scw-configrc
echo -e "Downloading full backup to:" $1
duplicity \
  --time 0D \
  ${SCW_BUCKET} $1

Download the data from your bucket to the Elastic Metal server:
```
./scw-restore.sh /tmp/backup-recovery/
```

Once downloaded you can move the data to its final destination onto your new machine.

Tip:

You can also use Duplicity for regular and incremental backups of your data on the Object Storage platform. Follow our tutorial How to back up your dedicated server on Object Storage with Duplicity for more information.