I have 27 containers running with rancher on windows. Long story short, I’m tired of the resource use and stress on my machine by running the VM. My data folders are split up by duty (admin, utility, media, virtualization) each duty has its own folder, containing the services’ folder with data/config directories and one compose.yaml file for those services. All the compose files are connected to a master compose file in the parent directory that starts all of them. My compose files have references to the media hdds that are defined with an .env file next to the master compose.
I need to clone my docker setup to a Debian install I’ve been working on on its own ssd. I’ve been screwing with Linux unsuccessfully for almost 20 years, so my cli is weak. I’m looking for a tool that will clone my volumes and containers.
What do you use?
rsync
Built-in, picks up where it left off if you accidentally cancel it by running the same command again, and dead simple.
Permissions for the files will probably be a little broken moving to Linux, but chmod is also easy to use and can work at the directory level.
Be wary when you use rsync, to not upgrade past version 3.4.1. Later versions were vibecoded / slopcoded and cause data loss.
I too was upset with the use of Claude/AI/LLM’s in the rsync project. The maintainer received a lot of public backlash and as a result people have offered their time to help the maintainer with this project.
Since the backlash, the use of agents has been drastically reduced. That seems like a very human and overall positive response. It sucks that it happened. It’s nice that people are now doing the work again. The response could have been a lot worse. I can be forgiving in this specific situation.
Oh! I might check up how the repo is doing during the weekend, might merit an upgrade once the next major (3.5 if I’m getting my numbers right) comes around.
Fuck’s sake. What was the actual bug introduced? I skimmed the issues on GitHub and nothing jumped out at me.
I don’t remember the exact bug but just search for “data loss” and/or “changed behaviour”, either it wil come up or the devs have been whitewashing their inclusion of AI and censoring discussions.
Dammit.
Don’t sweat it (yet) and just lock it in your package manager. If you are on Debian, the last reasonable versions can be apt get from snapshots.debian.org and then just apt pin / apt mark hold those.
Debian has a policy of only cherry picking security updates, or critical bugfixes, in order to ensure maximum system stability. In general, they don’t do entire program updates or additional features. For the 4 year lifecycle of a Debian release, it will behave the same as it did yesterday.
As of today, current version of rsync in Debian’s stable’s packages is 3.4.1: https://packages.debian.org/stable/rsync (archive).
The versions with significant LLM assistance are 3.4.3 and later.
This. Docker compose down, schlep the data over, update paths and permissions, docker compose up. Done.
Probably bring it up one step at a time so you can more easily identify anything you missed.
If you need to change the references in the compose or env files:
- use sed to replace text in .env
- use variables and interpolation in compose
@horus_son_of_isis I can’t tell you a tool for migrating. But for managing Docker / Podman container under linux, i really like #Dockhand . Many describe it as the better #Portainer (i havent used portainer, so i cant tell)
But I think for that you would need to adjust your current setup (as i understood one compose file “manages” other compose files) and split them up.I would drop into the Docker VM and use scp to transfer all if your data



