From BBB 2.5 to BBB 3 and procedure for migrating from Greenlight v2 to Greenlight v3?

[MIssac]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently running BBB 2.5.18 with Greenlight v2 on an Ubuntu 20.04 server.

I plan to install BBB 3 on a fresh server running Ubuntu 22.04. This will erase and replace the current server.
I would like to recover the Greenlight v2 database in Greenlight v3 on the new server so that all the users don't have to subscribe again.

I read the documentation about migrating from Greenlight v2 to Greenlight v3 https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/greenlight/v3/migration/
but I'm not quite sure how to proceed since both versions need to be running at the same time.

1/ should I run Greenlight v3 alongside v2 on the current Ubuntu 20.04 server and migrate from v2 to v3, then backup Greenlight v3 and redeploy it on the new U22.04 server once BBB 3 is installed?

2/ should I backup the current Greenlight v2 database from /root/greenlight, install the new U22.04+BB3 configuration, restore Greenlight v2, install v3 and migrate from v2 to v3?

Many thanks in advance for any help,
Best
Mélanie

[MIssac]

Hi everyone

Would the following procedure work?

1/ upgrade inplace from BBB 2.5 to BBB 2.6 (or 2.7?) on the current Ubuntu 20.04 server with the '-g' flag for the install script, which will install Greenlight v3 (if I understand it correctly) => this way I should have Greenlight v2 and v3 running on the same server

2/ migrate users and rooms (I don't have any recordings) from Greenlight v2 to v3 using the documentation https://docs.bigbluebutton.org/greenlight/v3/migration/

3/ backup the greenlight-v3 data

4/ crash everything, install Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, BBB 3 with Greenlight v3, using the greenlight-v3 backup, which should be straightforward?

Many thanks in advance for any help,
Best
Mélanie

[Jean Pluzo]

Hi,

please DO make a backup of your database and store it somewhere safe.
I haven't had the chance to migrate to v3, but I have had to do several migrations of Scalelite from one server to another and the backup has always helped me.

An in-place upgrade is never a good idea. It could be done and you shouldn't have (many) problems, but it's always recommended to start fresh.
You can always install GL v2 and v3 in another server, even in a VM, and try upgrading there. If all goes well THEN you can crash everything and, once you have BBB v3 running, copy the already upgraded GL database to the BBB server.

Regards,

J.

[MIssac]

@Jean,

Thank a lot for your answer.

I played around with a spare laptop.

1/ I installed a minimal Ubuntu 20 with BBB 2.7 and Greenlight v3, an internal hostname and a self-signed certificate

I installed Greenlight v2 from docker and restored the GLv2 database backup-ed from the production server (running BBB 2.5 and GLv2)

I managed to migrate v2 to v3 after struggling a few hours with the fact that GLv2 did not recognize the self-signed certificate.

Also, I found the official migration documentation a little bit unclear.

Indeed it begins with:

In Greenlight v2 .env file, add the following variables:
V3_ENDPOINT, which points to your Greenlight v3 URL.
V3_SECRET_KEY_BASE, a copy from Greenlight v3 SECRET_KEY_BASE. 

But then it reads below

Retrieve GLv2's SECRET_KEY_BASE:
Edit the .env file on your GLv2 machine and replace the value of V3_SECRET_KEY_BASE with the copied value.
On your GLv3 machine, replace the SECRET_KEY_BASE in your .env file with the same value that you copied from GLv2.
Ensure that the SECRET_KEY_BASE values for GLv2, GLv3, and the V3_SECRET_KEY_BASE variable in GLv2's .env file are now synchronized.

which is not quite logical: V3_SECRET_KEY_BASE must actually be the SECRET_KEY_BASE from v3 and not from v2 :-/

Eventually I was able to migrate roles, users and rooms and synchronize recordings in GLv3, and I checked that I was able to access my own GL user account in v3 with the same password as in v2.

2/ I backup-ed the GLv3 directory, crashed the operating system and installed on my test laptop: Ubuntu 22 with BBB 3 and Greenlight v3

And I checked that I was able to restore the previous GLv3 backup.

Everything seems to be fine now, so I will reinstall the production server...

Regards,

Mélanie