Transferring a droplet snapshot to client account to be used for hosting his site?

Question

Hello,I have this droplet with Ubuntu 16.4 installed with Nginx hosting a LIVE website on WordPress. I have a client who will host his WordPress site with a same config. Now I took a snapshot of my droplet and would like to send it to him. Here are my queries as I have never done this snapshot transfer in DO before: Will he get an exact copy of my server with Ubuntu 16.4, Nginx, WordPress and Lets Encrypt SSL certificate along with the same DNS records my site is running? Since it’s just one site I am hosting, it won’t be a big hassle for him to update the DNS with his domain info once he gets the snapshot and created the droplet from it, isn’t it? Will he has to register for a new SSL certificate by reinstalling Lets Encrypt, or I? Will his Ubuntu installation have the same users I have created here with the same passwords, password disabled for root and same SSH keys? Will I lose anything at all other than the snapshot I created? Will my droplet or IP or DNS be affected in any way? Could somebody help me with these scenario please? I hope I explained clearly enough. He will host a different WP site with the same kind of Ubuntu/Nginx setup. DNS and other related stuff will be different as you can see. And again there might one or two dumb questions there. Thanks in advance.

Jonathan Tittle · Accepted Answer

@mcmurphy

The first thing I would recommend, since this is a live site, is powering down the Droplet before taking the snapshot. This ensures that reading and writing stops while the snapshot generates and ensures data consistency. If you do a live snapshot, and writes are taking place at the time the snapshot is run, you may lose data. The only way to prevent this is powering down, take the snapshot, power on.

As for your questions:

1). It’s a full-state backup – that means OS + Data. They would restore it as an image when deploying a Droplet on their end.

2). The client should only need to point his/her domain to the IP of the Droplet created on their end. It all depends on how things are setup, but that’s generally all that’s required.

3). SSL Certificates are tied to Hosts/IP’s, so they would need to generate a new SSL Certificate for their domain.

4). Snapshots create a full-state backup, so it’ll be restored exactly as it was backed up.

5). You’ll lose the snapshot, but it wouldn’t bring down any of your Droplets or affect other configuration.

mcmurphy · Answer

Crystal clear. Thank you @jtittle

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Transferring a droplet snapshot to client account to be used for hosting his site?

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