# Site migration and plugins
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/site-migration-and-plugins/239414
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [September 19, 2022, 2:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/site-migration-and-plugins/239414 "2022-09-19T14:29:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Wall-E](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Wall-E)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2022, 2:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/site-migration-and-plugins/239414/1 "2022-09-19T14:29:50Z")
Our Discourse site will soon be moved to a new machine, and the domain will be mapped to a new ip. Does the backup file contain all the installed plugins? Or will we have to re-install the plugin as if they had never been installed? Or does it depend on the plugin?
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2022, 3:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/site-migration-and-plugins/239414/2 "2022-09-19T15:11:43Z")
Backups contain only data (database and optionally upload files). The forum code + plugins are defined in the app.yml file, and you need a to use a similar app.yml on the new server to keep using the same plugins.
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2022, 4:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/site-migration-and-plugins/239414/3 "2022-09-19T16:25:32Z")
Have a look at [Move your Discourse Instance to a Different Server](https://meta.discourse.org/t/move-your-discourse-instance-to-a-different-server/15721).
You can transfer the ssl keys so that you have zero down time (just a bit of read-only time while you copy stuff over).