Migrate from DigitalOcean Droplets to fortrabbit
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From a Droplet to fortrabbit.
How to move a Laravel, WordPress or other PHP site from a self-managed DigitalOcean Droplet to a fortrabbit app. The code moves through Git, the settings by hand, the database as a dump, the uploads with rsync.
Migrate from a DigitalOcean Droplet with a coding agent
Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other coding agents can run this migration. Paste this prompt into the agent, in the project folder:
Read https://www.fortrabbit.com/agents.md and set up fortrabbit. Then move this site from a DigitalOcean Droplet to fortrabbit, following https://www.fortrabbit.com/raw/migrate/from-digitalocean-droplets.md
Sign-in happens in the browser, see agent setup. The agent needs SSH access to the Droplet to find the setup, dump the database and copy the uploads. The steps below are what the agent follows, and what to do by hand without one. The agent changes nothing on the old host: a person deletes the old setup once the site runs on fortrabbit.
Droplet setup and where it goes
A Droplet is a plain Linux server, so every setup differs. The table names the usual places.
| On the Droplet | On fortrabbit |
|---|---|
Web root, often under /var/www | Git repository, deployed by the GitHub integration |
.env or config files | Environment variables |
Deploy script or manual git pull | Build commands and post-deploy commands |
crontab -l, /etc/cron.d | Cron jobs |
| Supervisor or systemd services | Workers |
| MySQL on the Droplet or a Managed Database | MySQL component |
| Uploads on disk | Storage component, files copied with rsync |
1. Create the app
Create an app in the dashboard with the software template matching the CMS or framework. Its default domain works with HTTPS right away, so the whole move can be tested before DNS changes. Lower the TTL of the domain's DNS records now, see migrate to fortrabbit.
2. Find the setup
Log in over SSH. The web server config names the web root: look in /etc/nginx/sites-enabled or /etc/apache2/sites-enabled. Then collect:
- The
.envor config file. Copy every value except the database credentials and the app URL into the environment variables of the fortrabbit environment. - The crontab of the web user and
/etc/cron.d. Each entry becomes one cron job. - Supervisor programs in
/etc/supervisor/conf.dor systemd units for queue workers. Each becomes a worker. - The PHP version and extensions, with
php -vandphp -m. Set the same PHP version on fortrabbit.
fortrabbit has no Redis. A Laravel app sets the queue, cache and session drivers to database or file, see Laravel queues and scheduler.
3. Deploy the code
Connect the GitHub repository to the environment and push. Code that is not in Git yet goes into a new repository first, without uploads, vendor and credentials.
4. Move the database
Dump MySQL on the Droplet with mysqldump. For a DigitalOcean Managed Database, add the IP address of the machine running the dump to its trusted sources, then:
mysqldump -u doadmin -p -h <host> -P 25060 --single-transaction --set-gtid-purged=OFF <database> > dump.sql
Import the dump into the MySQL component as described under MySQL export and import.
5. Copy the uploads
Pull the upload folder to the local machine with rsync, then push it to the environment, see rsync. Files on DigitalOcean Spaces stay where they are: keep the bucket credentials in the environment variables.
6. Switch the DNS
Domains on DigitalOcean DNS keep working there: change the records in the DigitalOcean control panel. Test the app on its default domain, add the custom domain to the environment and point the records to fortrabbit, see external domain setup.
What stays on the Droplet
- Custom Nginx rules. fortrabbit runs Apache, so rewrites move into .htaccess.
- Root-level software and services next to the app, such as Redis, Elasticsearch or a mail server. fortrabbit has no root shell, see limits.
Once the site runs on fortrabbit, take a last snapshot and destroy the Droplet.