I run a Discourse forum installation on Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS. The Docker image uses AUFS for storage. Today, I installed upgrades via sudo apt upgrade. Now the Discourse forum is no longer accessible, and it appears to be because a Docker upgrade removed the AUFS storage driver. I see plenty of guides to configuring Docker to use Overlay2 instead, but I don’t see any guidance on how to migrate my existing Discourse installation to use Overlay2, especially now that I can’t start Docker to mount my AUFS volumes. When I execute sudo dockerd --debug The output is INFO[2024-05-15T19:49:04.327570182-04:00] Starting up DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.332295421-04:00] Listener created for HTTP on unix (/var/run/docker.sock) WARN[2024-05-15T19:49:04.340758649-04:00] failed to rename /var/lib/docker/tmp for background deletion: rename /var/lib/docker/tmp /var/lib/docker/tmp-old: file exists. Deleting synchronously DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.427688615-04:00] Golang's threads limit set to 13680 DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.430903802-04:00] metrics API listening on /var/run/docker/metrics.sock DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.554881397-04:00] Using default logging driver json-file DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.555543790-04:00] No quota support for local volumes in /var/lib/docker/volumes: Filesystem does not support, or has not enabled quotas DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.563660483-04:00] processing event stream module=libcontainerd namespace=plugins.moby DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.567109514-04:00] Error while looking up volume driver=local error="volume not found" volume= DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.567813165-04:00] Error while looking up volume driver=local error="volume not found" volume= INFO[2024-05-15T19:49:04.574217050-04:00] [graphdriver] trying configured driver: aufs DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.574500003-04:00] daemon configured with a 15 seconds minimum shutdown timeout DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.574603992-04:00] start clean shutdown of all containers with a 15 seconds timeout... DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.578694693-04:00] Cleaning up old mountid : start. DEBU[2024-05-15T19:49:04.579329989-04:00] Cleaning up old mountid : done. failed to start daemon: error initializing graphdriver: [graphdriver] ERROR: the aufs storage-driver has been deprecated and removed; visit https://docs.docker.com/go/storage-driver/ for more information: aufs How can I restore my Discourse forum without losing any data? Can I somehow restore the AUFS storage driver and then migrate to Overlay2 storage?

Unfortunately, Docker stopped working after the upgrade. You can see the error in the final line of the output I provided. I can get Docker to start if I change the contents of /etc/docker/daemon.json from { "storage-driver": "aufs" } to { "storage-driver": "overlay2" } However, my Discourse forum still doesn’t work after making that change. Are you saying that it will work, and maintain the users, posts, and rest of the configuration and historical data if I execute the following and restart Docker? cd /var/discourse git pull ./launcher rebuild app Will rebuilding Discourse in that manner migrate all the forum data to Overlay2 storage?

I expect that will work. I can’t imagine a way that you’ll lose data.

You were right, apparently. After changing the storage driver in /etc/docker/daemon.json to overlay2 and executing ./launcher rebuild app, the forum seems to be back up and running. Now I wonder if I should tempt fate and do an Ubuntu release upgrade to 22.04.3 LTS. :slight_smile:

I would wait another bit and create a new 24.04 image and migrate to it rather than do an upgrade, or just move to 22.04 now. I don’t trust how much stuff doesn’t get upgraded on an upgrade. Plus, you avoid the downtime and if anything goes wrong your old server is still working. Move a Discourse site to another VPS with rsync

Docker Upgrade Removed AUFS Storage Driver, Killed Discourse

Product Support Self-hosting

pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman) May 16, 2024, 5:54am 2

You won’t lose data, it’s in /var/discourse/shared.

If docker works, just rebuild and you’ll be fine.

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Docker Upgrade Removed AUFS Storage Driver, Killed Discourse

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