Hi! I’m preparing to migrate some Discourse instances to new hosting. The plan is to set the old site read-only, take a backup, move that across to the new hosting and restore while updating the DNS settings (on a short TTL). This process is all taken from guides here and around. I’ve been doing…

I’ve had this problem too and I’m keen to resolve it. Any pointers appreciated.

I think I’m going to try creating some test accounts without 2FA in case that has anything to do with it - very few site members use 2FA, so that might be acceptable it it’s just those sessions that get lost. Also I’ll check the source and destination servers are sync’d to NTP though they can’t be …

Your best would be to inform your users about the change and that they would be logged out and need to sign in again. Each server has their unique signature with the SSL in place. It will be less of a headache to make the user sign in again, than trying to change server settings. Just apologize f…

[image] IAmGav: Each server has their unique signature with the SSL in place. Is that the case though? How are session cookies affected by SSL “signatures” (especially when, in my case, the new and old hosts are using the same SSL certificate files, on the same domain name)?

[image] IAmGav: Just apologize for the inconvenience caused, but point out its for the better While I have no problem apologizing to the members (:slightly_smiling_face:), I really want to avoid that scenario as I can see a couple of unfavorable side-effects: Members don’t log in again, and…

I know that I’ve definitely had forum sessions survive a backup & restore. I’m really not sure what’s going on here :frowning:

Session cookies are encrypted using a randomly generated secret key which, by default, is stored in redis. Redis data is not included in a backup so a new secret key is regenerated when you restore the site onto a new server. app/models/global_setting.rb 6e69c2513 …

Excellent - this is something I shall try out on a sandbox instance. I’ll see if I can report back if it works or not :slight_smile: [image] david: Side note: you absolutely should not share the secret key between multiple discourse instances. Understood. I am now pondering whether there s…

[image] TallTrees: I am now pondering whether there should be a feature request for an option to export this key in backups? It is a delicate balancing act between security and convenience. At the moment if someone manages to steal a discourse backup, they have all the data on the forum. But…

[image] david: At the moment if someone manages to steal a discourse backup, they have all the data on the forum. But they do not have the ability to log in to the live forum. The security of the default backups should also be improved too, in my humble opinion. While passwords and sessions …

Preserving user sessions when migrating between hosts

Support Self-hosting

Topic		Replies	Views
Preserve user sessions when migrating to a new host Sysadmins how-to , migrations	0	1426	October 7, 2020
How to migrate Discourse Forum data (Topics, Chat, and Configuration) to another server Self-hosting	5	1685	June 7, 2023
Move your Discourse Instance to a Different Server Self-Hosting how-to , migrations	10	293190	October 16, 2025
How to switch Discourse servers? Self-hosting	6	828	January 19, 2023
How do I move the discourse installed server to another server without loss? Self-hosting	4	1124	May 31, 2023

Preserving user sessions when migrating between hosts

Related topics