How to Migrate a Website to Google Cloud Without Downtime

Taking inventory of a Linux server before migration

Before migrating to a new server, your first task should be taking inventory of your current Linux server. You want to ensure that your new server matches what you have on your current server.

These are what you’ll need to gather from your current server:

• Web server and version number
• Database server and version number
• PHP and related modules
• Other servers and services and how they’re configured

If you’re running an Apache web server, the commands below will help you find its version on Ubuntu Linux.

apache2 -v

For more detailed version checks and steps to install a specific Apache version, see this guide.

How to check and install specific Apache versions on Ubuntu Linux

If you’re running an Nginx web server, use the commands below to determine its version on Ubuntu Linux.

nginx -v

For more detailed version checks and steps to install a specific Nginx version, see this guide.

How to check and install specific Nginx versions on Ubuntu Linux

To check what PHP version is installed and how to install a specific one on Ubuntu Linux, see this guide.

How to check and install specific PHP versions on Ubuntu Linux

Whether you’re running MySQL or MariaDB, the guide below shows you how to determine which version runs on Ubuntu Linux.

How to find what version of MySQL or MariaDB runs on Ubuntu Linux

How to set up and connect to your Google Cloud server

Now that you’ve inventoried your current server, it’s time to set up your Google Cloud server. Once registered for a Google Cloud account, you can set up a VM (Compute Engine) to host your website content.

Your Google Cloud server (called Compute Engine) lets you connect via SSH directly from your browser window to your virtual machine (VM) instance within the Google Cloud Console.

SSH from the browser supports the following:

• Web browsers
  • The latest version of Google Chrome
  • Firefox
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 and later
  • Safari 8 and later. Note that Safari is not supported in private browser mode.
• Virtual machine configurations
  • All Linux VM images are natively available in Google Cloud.

No additional software or browser extensions are needed. Log in to Google Cloud Console and go to Menu ==> Compute Engine ==> VM instances.

In the list of virtual machine instances, click SSH in the row of the instance you want to connect to.

Alternatively, you can open an SSH connection to an instance by clicking its name and SSH from the instance details page.

An SSH terminal window with the Ubuntu Linux instance created in the series’s second post will open.

You should now be able to run commands in Ubuntu Linux created on the Google Cloud server.

Install LAMP or LEMP on the new server before migration

Now that you’ve inventoried your current server and know how to connect to your Google Cloud server, it’s time to install LAMP or LEMP on your new one using the guide below.

Your goal is to ensure your new Google server has the same servers and packages as your current one. We’ve listed some helpful posts that you can use to install Apache, Nginx, MySQL, MariaDB, or PHP.

Some other posts that you may want to use when installing LAMP or LEMP on Ubuntu Linux.

• How to install Apache on a Google Cloud server (alternative to Nginx)
• How to install Nginx on a Google Cloud server (alternative to Apache)
• How to install PHP on a Google Cloud server
• How to install MySQL or MariaDB database server

You can use the posts above to install the same servers and packages you have installed on your current server. However, if you install specific packages on your new server, use the identical posts mentioned above.

Once all the packages are installed, you can transfer content from your current server to the new one.

Configure your new Google server similar to your current server

Before migration, you’ll want to ensure your new Google server is almost identical to your current server.

Ensure the web server (Apache or Nginx) settings are on old and new servers, including the same directory structure and Virtual Host or Server block content.

• Apache directory: /etc/apache2/
• Nginx directory: /etc/nginx/

Your PHP configuration should also be identical to your current server’s PHP settings. Use the post above to install a specific PHP version and all the modules on your current server.

• PHP directory: /etc/php/

Your MySQL or MariaDB configurations should also mimic your current server. Validate each file, directory, and other data to ensure your new server is no different from your current server before migration.

• MySQL / MariaDB directory: /etc/mysql/

Once you have that done, you can continue with the migration process.

Back up current server data and database before migration

Now that you have installed LAMP or LEMP on your new server and have configured it to be identical or very similar to your current server, it’s time to back up the content on the current server so you can migrate it to the new server.

It would be best if you moved to the new server. First, you need to back up your website and database content.

Before backing up your current server, it’s important to stop all changes. You don’t want new updates to be added after the backup is complete.

To back up your website content, log on to your server via SSH if you have access. Once on your current server SSH console, run the commands below to back up your website content, usually at this location: /var/www/html/.

When you run the commands below, a backed-up file named current-server-backup.tar will be created with your website content.

sudo tar -cvf current-server-backup.tar /var/www/html/

Next, back up your database content. Again, you need to use the root account or an account with full access to the database you wish to back up.

To back up all databases on the server, run the commands below:

sudo mysqldump -u username –p --all-database > all_databases_backup.sql

In addition, a file named all_databases_backup.sql should also be created in the current working directory.

You should now have two files: current-server-backup.tar and all_database_backup.sql.

Copy the current server’s content to the Google Cloud server

At this point, you should be ready to copy the current server’s content over to your new server. There are many ways to get the tar and SQL data files to the new server.

You can use the rsync command from the new server by SSHing into it and using a command similar to that shown below (changing the host names as needed).

While connected to your Google Cloud console, run the commands below to connect to your current server and copy over the backed-up content.

rsync -avz user@old-server.com:/home/<username>/all_database_backup.sql
rsync -avz user@old-server.com:/home/<username>/current-server-backup.tar

You could also use SCP to copy your files securely; the syntax looks like this:

scp user@old-server.com:/home/<username>/all_database_backup.sql /home/username/
scp user@old-server.com:/home/<username>/current-server-backup.tar /home/username/

If you can’t get the files using SSH, then you can use the wget command to download the files to your new Google Cloud server.

You must copy the files to the current server’s web server root directory to be able to use the commands below.

cd ~
wget http://old-web-site.com/all_database_backup.sql
wget http://old-web-site.com/current-server-backup.tar

Once the files are copied to your new server, continue to extract them below and import the database content into your database server.

Restore the current server’s content to the Google Cloud server

Now that you have copied the current server content to your new server, run the commands below to extract the archive content and copy the website content to your HTML directory, similar to what’s configured on your current server.

tar -xvf current-server-content.tar
sudo cp -rf /var/www/html/ /var/www/html/

Next, run the commands below to import the database content to your servers.

sudo mysql -u root -p < all_database_backup.sql

At this point, your Google server should have the current servers and database content. Next, run the commands below to set up the current permissions to match the server.

Validate that all configurations on your current server match your new Google Cloud server. Once all have been validated, restart your web server.

sudo systemctl restart nginx
sudo systemctl restart apache2

If you get an error, make sure to resolve it.

Update your DNS and point your domain to your new Google server IP address

Before going live and updating your DNS A records to point to your new server, you can test locally by editing your /etc/hosts or host files on Windows. Point your domain to your new IP address and browse it. Once your local test is successful, you can update your public DNS A record to point to your new Google server IP address if everything looks correct.

Once your local test is successful, log in to your DNS provider portal and update the DNS A record to point to your new server IP address.

If everything works, you can continue fine-tuning your new server to ensure everything is configured correctly.

That should do it!

Conclusion:

This post showed you how to migrate a website to a Google Cloud server. Please use the comment form below if you find any errors above or have something to add.