Backup from Windows to Linux

[Misinthe 46]

Hello everyone, I am currently running a dedicated Windows server for Emby and I purchased a Virtualization Host, so I want to get rid of the physical server and spin up a Linux VM for Emby and use network drives in my FreeNAS for the files, my question is, can the Windows backup be restored in Linux or do I need to do a Windows VM to restore the Windows backup? Also worth noting that I do have Emby Premiere.

Thanks in advance!

[Luke 42077]

Hi, you can restore across OS's, but we only suggest restoring users and user data, and nothing more than that. Anything else may contain non-existent folder paths and until you hunt them all down and fix the config options you're going to run into problems because of that.

[Happy2Play 9780]

Yes ideally you would rebuild server on new platform and only restore users and user data from the Server Configuration Backup plugin do to potential library path differences and platform file location differences across different platforms.

But theoretically if path library path do not change you could migrate Emby Programdata folder from system to system.  But this assumes every files that has a specific path config aligns across the platforms.

[Misinthe 46]

19 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, you can restore across OS's, but we only suggest restoring users and user data, and nothing more than that. Anything else may contain non-existent folder paths and until you hunt them all down and fix the config options you're going to run into problems because of that.

 

13 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Yes ideally you would rebuild server on new platform and only restore users and user data from the Server Configuration Backup plugin do to potential library path differences and platform file location differences across different platforms.

But theoretically if path library path do not change you could migrate Emby Programdata folder from system to system.  But this assumes every files that has a specific path config aligns across the platforms.

Understood, so this time it will be a pain because I'll have to identify everything again. But when I set my library in FreeNAS then it won't matter since the network location will always be the same.

Thank you for the information!

[Carlo 4560]

Hi, this depends on your current setup.  If you have NFO files saved with your media that can be used on the initial load of the media so you won't have these mismatches.
One approach could be to install the Backup Configuration Plugin from the catalog (Premiere users) and get a config backup.   You would then restore this on the Linux server.
Then you review the libraries it setup to make sure the "types" are correct.  IE you make sure any movie libs are type Movie, etc
Then you go into each library and change the source path of any mount points.

That's one possibility and what I personally would try first to achieve what you want.  However you may have other obstacles you haven't thought of.

So if I understand you correctly, the game plan is to keep the media housed in your private network (home network) with a some type of share to the Linux host that will run your new Emby Instance.

If so, here are some things to think about. If you have graphics stored with your local media you may want to delete that data (personally I'd move it) from the libs. If you don't remove it from the library paths your Linux box will be constantly trying to load that info across the internet vs having it stored on the host machine.  That would likely make this unbearable.

Are your files direct playable?  If not you may hit obstacles using a virtual Linux host doing transcoding as you likely will not have access to hardware transcoding. Depending on your media this could be a deal breaker.

Lastly you will need to consider the amount of actual real cores you get and not the "vCPUs" often quoted.  A vCPU could be 1/8 a real core depending on platform used but likely won't translate to a real core for your use.  Also most count providers count the core and the hyperthead as two cores.   So an old 4 core, 8 thread would be considered 8 vCPUs. A modern XEON 10 core/20 thread wouldn't be considered 20 cores but 40 because each core is so much faster then an older "vCPU".

So that's something to watch for as not all "cores" are equal.  Space is also something you need to consider. If you presently have all the graphics and optional bif/thumbnails stored with your media that will now realistically need to be on the host.  So you can check the present size of the Emby folder and all folders under it, then do a search of all your library and total up the size of bif, jpg, png, etc files and add the two together to get a rough idea of the new "true" meta-data folder that you will need.

Lastly, the size of your upload bandwidth matters a great deal because your remote Linux server is going to be pulling the actual files.  So keep in mind if you have a 30GB rip stored locally and play that back and it transcodes to a nice tight stream you still have to be able to stream the original size file to the Linux machine!

So my point being, give this a lot of thought to see if it's even possible to do. You may find it's not going to be the solution you thought it was but instead a much bigger headache.

If you don't mind me asking, what is your reasoning or thought behind this shift of server location?
Also how comfortable are you with Linux at present with the command line?

Carlo

PS, if you want to run some quick numbers let me know and I can go over this with you. Depending on your geographic location I could probably spin up a Linux machine similar to what you plan on getting in the cloud and let you play for a couple of days using Emby testing some remote scanning and play back.

[TheShanMan 40]

I'd like to move my server from Windows to Linux (Ubuntu, unless there's a better choice for Emby). In my case it's the same system, currently configured as dual boot. So library directories are still accessible with the same relative paths, although obviously not the same absolute paths since I'm going from Windows to Linux.

I'd like to preserve as much configuration as possible, particularly stuff like "watched" status.

For now I can do trial and error (even including more technical stuff like running mysql updates) and if anything doesn't work out, I can just start over. Until I have a migration I'm happy with, I'll just be booting back to Windows for general Emby use.

Will the Server Configuration Backup plugin do all that I need, aside from having to manually update the root paths of my libraries? Since my use case is slightly different than what's being asked about here, I'm trying to figure out what applies in my case and what doesn't.

[Luke 42077]

6 hours ago, TheShanMan said:

I'd like to move my server from Windows to Linux (Ubuntu, unless there's a better choice for Emby). In my case it's the same system, currently configured as dual boot. So library directories are still accessible with the same relative paths, although obviously not the same absolute paths since I'm going from Windows to Linux.

I'd like to preserve as much configuration as possible, particularly stuff like "watched" status.

For now I can do trial and error (even including more technical stuff like running mysql updates) and if anything doesn't work out, I can just start over. Until I have a migration I'm happy with, I'll just be booting back to Windows for general Emby use.

Will the Server Configuration Backup plugin do all that I need, aside from having to manually update the root paths of my libraries? Since my use case is slightly different than what's being asked about here, I'm trying to figure out what applies in my case and what doesn't.

Hi, in theory yes but i think the backup feature needs some work when moving between windows and Linux.

[TheShanMan 40]

Cool... any idea what I might run into then (if not I can just give it a go and see what happens)? And is this an opportunity to provide feedback that will lead to fixes in the near term? I'm not necessarily in a rush to migrate so if a month or 2 of providing feedback and testing fixes leads to a working solution, I'd be up for it.

[Neminem 1518]

You will run into invalid path's when switching from windows to linux.

As fare as I know.

Windows : c:\path\to\movie

Linnux : /path/to/movie 

[TheShanMan 40]

Sounds like that's just a matter of editing each library to fix the root paths. If that's the only problem I'd be happy as a clam.

[Neminem 1518]

Then you might also have issues with metadata paths.

People / manuel created collections / Playlistes both Emby created and manuel.

Just as an FYI.

[Happy2Play 9780]

2 hours ago, TheShanMan said:

Sounds like that's just a matter of editing each library to fix the root paths. If that's the only problem I'd be happy as a clam.

In theory yes but require manual database update as almost everything is database driven now.

Have a look at this topic.