Take it easy, sit back and relax
I've been using DigitalOcean servers for three months now, and they feel pretty good. However, when I bought the server, I didn't give much thought to the configuration and region. So, the original server was located in New York (NYC1 region + 1-core Intel CPU + 2GB RAM + 50GB storage)
Instance List
After using it, I found:
- CPU is insufficient
- Storage space is insufficient
- Storage speed is insufficient (even though it's an SSD)
- Latency is too high
Then I wondered if changing regions could solve the problem. After some Bing searches, it seemed that the San Francisco region has good overall performance. So, let's get to work.
Migration
Preparation
There are two migration schemes:
- Create a system snapshot (approx. 40GB) in the DigitalOcean Panel, then restore it to the target machine.
- Use 1Panel to create a snapshot (approx. 2.3GB) and restore it on the target machine.
Ultimately, I decided to use the second method, but as it turns out: it's freaking annoying
Complete Process
Purchase a new server
Purchase Interface 1
Purchase Interface 2
I finally chose the 2 AMD CPU + 2GB RAM + 60GB NVME SSD configuration. It's decent, but based on the credits in my GitHub Student Developer Pack, I'll have to migrate to a Tencent Cloud server in January (another pitfall ahead, sigh).
Then we got a new, clean ubuntu-24-lts server:
The top one is the new server
Create the snapshot
Enter the 1Panel dashboard of my existing server and create a system snapshot!
IMG_6926
Meanwhile, SSH into the new server from the console and deploy the great 1Panel!
IMG_6924
Restore the snapshot
Quite a few issues occurred here, which almost made me want to give up. For example, an error 400 occurred when downloading the snapshot from Tencent Cloud COS, saying the file didn't exist?
So I had to choose to copy the system snapshot manually.
What? Manual? No way. How could I download it to my computer and then upload it?
Why wouldn't I use DigitalOcean's natural, widely praised bandwidth of up to 2000M (though it doesn't reach that in China)?
Then it's simple: set up a website using the local IP as the address, copy the snapshot file to the website's root directory, and use wget to download it to the /opt/1panel/backup/system_snapshot directory on the target machine.
Exposing your backup files to the public internet is quite dangerous. Do not use this method casually. If you must, you should delete the site or the file immediately after the download is complete.
Downloading
Before restoring, you need to create a www directory under the /opt/1panel directory. Otherwise, you might encounter a website recovery error. If it terminates, don't panic; just create the folder and try again. It will work fine, trust me.
Then you can go ahead and restore it.
Other tasks
Handling Docker applications not installed via 1Panel
I also have Openpanel and Mix-Space on the server. For the former, I just need to copy the Docker volume to the target machine; the latter has its own export backup feature.
DNS Modification
Definitely. Go to the DNS provider to change the IP and wait for the resolution to take effect in various regions.
Delete the original server
I recommend doing this two or three days later after ensuring everything is fine (though I migrated in the morning and deleted it in the afternoon) .
Conclusion
I hope this tutorial will be helpful to your future self.