Christian's picture

Hi, I have a XenServer with a bunch of Debian Lenny (5.0) VM with software on it, mainly Zope/Plone servers, which I'd like to migrate into TKL (they don't depend on the Debian package system but are self-contained). I suppose that it is not possible to fit the Debian VMs with the TKLBAM-tools to backup the software into the cloud and then migrate them into a TKL instance. Or is it?

Thanks,

Christian 

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Alon Swartz's picture

Sorry for the late reply, as you have probably noticed we are working really hard to release TKLBAM officially, so we haven't been able to give the forums the love they deserve.

To answer your question, here is an excerpt from the (yet to be finalized and published) TKLBAM FAQ:

Q: Can I backup a non-TurnKey Linux system with TKLBAM?

A: No. TKLBAM is short for TurnKey Linux Backup and Migration. It's designed specifically for TurnKey Linux and depends on many system-level details that don't apply to other Linux distributions (e.g., installation method, versioning signatures, etc.).

I know that wasn't the answer you were hoping for. Maybe in the future we will look into making the transition from non-turnkey to turnkey systems more streamlined.

Christian's picture

That's what I expected - I assumed that there is a lot of low-level behind-the-scenes magic involved in the migration logic. Just wanted to make sure. I'll do a manual migration then.

Liraz Siri's picture

TKLBAM relies on the calculation of a delta from a fixed starting point. Only the delta is backed up and only the delta is reapplied when you restore.

Some non-TurnKey Debian based distributions might in fact provide us with a fixed starting point after installation. This is something we need to look into, and we may be able to make TKLBAM support those systems in the future.

I'm not sure we will ever be able to do this for Debian though. The more customizable the installation process, the further we get from a fixed installation state and in this regard stock Debian is as customizable as it gets.

After the upcoming release we'll revisit this. Maybe there is a way to pull this off... somehow...

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