Simple summary of how to move Discourse to a larger disk

[Andro (Andrew Bernard)]

Are there instructions for how to move an entire Discourse instance to another disk, e.g. a block storage volume from Digital Ocean? I have a self hosted Docker image. There’s some info here about it but its a bit tangled up with other discussion. I am out of space and launcher wont rebuild for that reason, even after trying to remove images.

[NateDhaliwal]

See:

Move Uploads and Backups to DigitalOcean Block Storage

So you want to move all uploads and backups to DigitalOcean Block Storage? Before you do this, though, you might instead consider Configure an S3 compatible object storage provider for uploads. It is no more complicated to set up and provides some other advantages. Setup a Discourse instance on DigitalOcean Setup a Discourse instance on DigitalOcean using our official guide. Add a Volume to your droplet Add a block storage volume to your droplet. Note down the name of the volume. In my case…

and:

Move your Discourse Instance to a Different Server

This is a guide for moving your Discourse instance from one server to another, including all settings and data. This guide applies to self-hosted Discourse instances using Docker. Required user level: System Administrator This procedure involves domain and DNS changes. Ensure you have access to both the source and destination servers. This guide walks you through the process of migrating your Discourse instance from one server to another, ensuring …

[Andro (Andrew Bernard)]

Not exactly my case. I want to move the Discourse instance to block storage on the same server. I do not want to move to a new server. And I want to move all, not just uploads and backups. Sorry to need so much handholding! I don’t want to mess this up.

[NateDhaliwal]

Then I think you’d want to look at the first doc I linked. Essentially you would move the uploads and backups to the mounted disk, but keep the database on the main drive.

@Discourse

Move /var/discourse/shared to the volume

For best performance we will keep postgres_data on our main drive and will move rest of the data to the newly attached volume.

Logged in as root, run these commands from your server:

mv /var/discourse/shared/standalone/postgres_data /var/postgres_data_discourse
mv /var/discourse/shared /mnt/volume_nyc1_05

Make sure to replace volume_nyc1_05 with the name of your volume.

Edit app.yml to reflect the changes

Open the /var/discourse/containers/app.yml file in your preferred editor and look for this block:

## The Docker container is stateless; all data is stored in /shared
volumes:
  - volume:
      host: /var/discourse/shared/standalone
      guest: /shared
  - volume:
      host: /var/discourse/shared/standalone/log/var-log
      guest: /var/log

Replace the above block with:

## The Docker container is stateless; all data is stored in /shared
volumes:
  - volume:
      host: /mnt/volume_nyc1_05/shared/standalone
      guest: /shared
  - volume:
      host: /mnt/volume_nyc1_05/shared/standalone/log/var-log
      guest: /var/log
  - volume:
      host: /var/postgres_data_discourse
      guest: /shared/postgres_data

Make sure to replace volume_nyc1_05 with the name of your volume.

Save the app.yml file and rebuild the container.

/var/discourse/launcher rebuild app

So unless I’m misunderstanding, this is what you’re trying to do? (And of course, please take a backup before doing this)

[Andro (Andrew Bernard)]

I have not checked but I thought its the database taking up the space, and need ing moving. High performance is not a consideration.

[Ethsim2 (Ethan)]

have you tried a broader Docker cleanup using docker system prune, rather than just removing images?

[Ed_S]

Best to start by measuring and sharing your measurements - you might well be right about the best way to proceed, but let’s see the shape of things.

Although the docker prune is a good idea too.

The size of the disk:

df -h /

And the usage of that disk right now:

@Ed_S

You can try to find out, for example at your root shell prompt:
du -kx / | sort -n | tail -33
and perhaps also
find / -xdev -size +1000k -ls | sort -n -k 2 | tail

And the usage by docker:

docker system df
docker images -a
docker image ls
docker volume ls -qf dangling=true

(I’m not a docker expert - that’s probably a bit redundant, but with all of those outputs we should be able to see the docker use)

Overall, your disk usage will be a combination of

• the operating system
• swap files
• various log files
• your discourse software
• your backups
• your database
• your forum uploads

For many forums, the uploads are the big chunk. But one must measure!

If you’re not an expert linux sysadmin, there will probably be some extra unneeded older things too.