How to quickly setup a test environment
Linode
Linode Staff
I am going to need to setup a new Linode server, similar to the one I currently have. Since the operating system is so old on my old server, we want create a new test Linode and switch over the IP address to the new server when ready for deployment.
Can you please provide me with some steps to get this new second server setup? Plus please provide the associated costs with this second server.
After the IP switch to the 2nd server, and everything is confirmed to be running properly, the 1st server would be shut down, leaving only the newly upgraded 2nd server running for the future.
Please let me know your thoughts.
1 Reply
asilverman
Linode Staff
What you are proposing is most likely the easiest scenario to implement. Since you have backups enabled it is easy to setup a test environment. You can spin up a new Linode with a mirror copy of the existing Linode quickly.
Follow these steps:
- Take a manual snapshot of the existing Linode (please note this will overwrite the existing manual snapshot)
- Spin up a new Linode without deploying a disk
- Restore the Backups manual snapshot to the new Linode
- Boot the new Linode
The associated costs for the second server would be the same as your original server since you would be deploying an image from the original Linode.
It is possible to setup a new Linode on a smaller plan than the original. The size of the Linode needed depends on the size of the Backups image. The newly deployed Linode needs to be larger that the Backups image being deployed. You can always resize up if needed at a later time.
When you are ready to place your test server live you can swap the IPs. Make sure that the new Linode is in the same data center for this to work.