INN2 on a Raspberry Pi 4? | Migrating between instances of INN2

[Christoph Biedl]

Avon wrote...

> Pi4 questions
>
> Can I run INN2 on the Pi4?

Certainly yes. Assuming "tower PC" means way more than ten years old,
you can expect the Pi4 to be even more powerful than your existing
hardware.

> What amount of compute / memory resources do I need to allow for
> INN2 if I were to run it on a Pi4?

In general, compared to the resources available today, INN does not
really need much. My instances usually have 1 Gbyte of RAM, and the
biggest hog is the log compression which I changed to xz (patch not
upstreamed for that reason).

So, even the smallest model (1 Gbyte RAM) should be good enough for
small site. More is better, as always.

Things are different if you have many users, but still: It's not
unthinkable to have the entire history and most of the overview in the
system's caches, and then I/O is not an issue any longer.

> Should I be using the APT manager to install INN2 and if so which
> package, or am I better off to just build the software from the
> source files like I did last time on my Debian box?

My impression is you're not quite keen on experimenting, just want to
put the show on the road. Then I'd recommend to use your distribution's
package as long as it's good enough for your needs. That will take a
lot of work off your shoulders.

> Anything Pi specific I should be aware of / wary of?

As already mentioned, you need a robust storage. An SD card will likely
not survive a long time. The SSD should be good.

> INN2 questions
>
> I run mostly CNFS buffers to store my articles, can I move them
> over to the new server I install on the Pi4? Total data is
> currently 82.7 Gig. Picking not as a direct copy and CNFS data is
> the hardest to transfer over?

I think buffers are arch-specific, so transferring them will likely
fail. Likewise the history files - it might work, possibly with some
extra fiddling, but for the same reason as above, I'd avise against
doing this.

> In thinking about some info I read on how to send articles from
> one server to another. If I want my new server to use the same
> domain name as my old server etc. (what shows in the path) is
> there anyway to transfer articles over from one system to the
> other like that?

Check the innxmit program, it allows feeding to another site without
innfeed.

In a nutshell (there should be documents about this):

* Grant the old server access on the new server (incoming.conf).
* Set innxref to false if you want to preserve article numbers.
  Do not forgert to revert that after switching.
* Disable the Perl filter during transmission.

> Has anyone tried running/using INN2 with Docker?

Yes, but not me. Should be doable.

    Christoph