Snap Migration to Package Manager / Binary Install

With snap install method for SemaphoreUI going deprecated, I recently endeavored on the process to migrate to another hosting method. I chose to install package version of Semaphore on the same system. I had originally intended use the backup and restore capabilities on a fresh install but ran into multiple issues which all appear to be bugs that have been fixed but impact the latest version of Semaphore in the snap. I then went a different route that I’m suggesting here be added as a documented path for others to migrate.

Steps to Migrate Semaphore Snap files to be be used with Package Manager or Binary Install: NOTE: This method keeps boltdb as the database for SemaphoreUI

1. Log in as root via sudo su - or another valid method
2. Stop the snap version of SemaphoreUI snap stop semaphore.semaphored
3. Copy files from snap over to new directory which will be the home directory a new system user called semaphore cp -rf /root/snap/semaphore/common /home/semaphore
4. Move the reponsitories folder to the new temp folder location mv -f /home/semaphore/repositories /tmp/semaphore
5. Update config.json with new paths to database.boltdb and temp folder sed -i 's/\/root\/snap\/semaphore\/common\/database.boltdb/\/home\/semaphore\/database.boltdb/' /home/semaphore/config.json sed -i 's/\/root\/snap\/semaphore\/common\/repositories/\/tmp\/semaphore/' /home/semaphore/config.json
6. Create new system user and group called semaphore with /home/semaphore as its home folder adduser --system --group --home /home/semaphore --no-create-home --shell /bin/bash semaphore
7. Transfer ownership of /home/semaphore and all files to the new system uses chown -R semaphore:semaphore /tmp/semaphore chmod o-rwx /home/semaphore chown -R semaphore:semaphore /home/semaphore

With these steps complete, install and setup semaphore via package manager using semaphore as the service user or group. All settings and previous runs should show up in the new SemaphoreUI instance. Once satisfied, the snap instance can be removed via sudo snap remove semaphore

I ended up automating all these steps through this bash file:

#/bin/bash
#File: migrate-semaphore-snap.sh
#Migrate SemaphoreUI from snap as root to package/binary as semaphore
sudo su -l root <<EOF
set -x
snap stop semaphore.semaphored
cp -rf /root/snap/semaphore/common /home/semaphore
mv -f /home/semaphore/repositories /tmp/semaphore`
sed -i 's/\/root\/snap\/semaphore\/common\/database.boltdb/\/home\/semaphore\/database.boltdb/' /home/semaphore/config.json
sed -i 's/\/root\/snap\/semaphore\/common\/repositories/\/tmp\/semaphore/' /home/semaphore/config.json
adduser --system --group --home /home/semaphore --no-create-home --shell /bin/bash semaphore
cp /etc/skel/.* /home/semaphore/
chown -R semaphore:semaphore /tmp/semaphore
chmod o-rwx /home/semaphore
chown -R semaphore:semaphore /home/semaphore
EOF