Windows Home Server — Part 25: The Ultimate Home Server Migration Checklist

You have configured a secure, high-performance web server, database engine, media transcoder, and continuous deployment pipeline—all running natively on bare-metal Windows.

The final step is migrating your active projects, databases, and assets off paid VPS platforms (like Heroku, DigitalOcean, or AWS) to your home server. This guide provides a step-by-step migration checklist, detailing how to safely export data, configure DNS records, and verify stability.

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1. Step-by-Step Migration Playbook

Follow these steps sequentially to minimize downtime:

Phase A: Database Export & Restore

1. Put Cloud App in Read-Only Mode: Stop writes to your cloud database (or temporarily shut down the dynamic web dynos).
2. Export Database Schema & Data:
   • For PostgreSQL:

     pg_dump -h CLOUD_HOST -U USERNAME -d DBNAME -f cloud-export.sql
     

   • For MySQL/MariaDB:

     mysqldump -h CLOUD_HOST -u USERNAME -p DBNAME > cloud-export.sql
     

3. Import to Home Server Database:
   • For PostgreSQL:

     # Create database locally
     "C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\16\bin\createdb.exe" -U postgres -h localhost DBNAME
     # Import sql
     "C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\16\bin\psql.exe" -U postgres -d DBNAME -f cloud-export.sql
     

   • For MariaDB:

     mariadb -u root -p DBNAME < cloud-export.sql
     

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Phase B: File Asset & Secret Sync

1. Sync S3 buckets: Download files from your paid S3 buckets and upload them to your local MinIO bucket or Cloudflare R2:

   aws s3 sync s3://paid-cloud-bucket s3://local-minio-bucket --endpoint-url http://localhost:9000
   

2. Transfer Environment Files: Copy your environment configurations (.env) for each application into their respective C:\Server\apps\ folders. Double-check database connection strings to ensure they point to localhost.

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Phase C: Continuous Deployment Hook Setup

1. Configure SSH Keys: Generate local SSH keys on the Windows server and register them on GitHub to allow passwordless git pulls.
2. Activate Webhooks: Register the repository webhook URLs pointing to your local deployment handler (https://deploy.yourdomain.com/deploy-bot) as configured in Part 9.

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Phase D: DNS Cutover

1. Go to your Cloudflare Dashboard → DNS settings.
2. Identify subdomain records (like api.yourdomain.com or dashboard.yourdomain.com) that previously pointed to VPS IP addresses.
3. Remove those records.
4. Route the subdomains to your home server's Cloudflare Tunnel (as set up in Part 2):

   # Point subdomains to the tunnel
   C:\Server\bin\cloudflared.exe --origincert C:\Server\cloudflared\cert.pem tunnel route dns homeserver api.yourdomain.com
   

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2. Server Stability & Maintenance Checklist

To ensure your server runs reliably without manual intervention:

• BIOS AC Recovery: Verify that the BIOS setting "AC Power Recovery" is set to On or Last State. (Test this by pulling the charger plug from the laptop and plugging it back in; the machine must boot to Windows automatically).
• Lid Close Sleep: Double-check that lid-close standby actions are set to "Do Nothing" for both AC and battery power profiles.
• Active Hours: Verify that Windows Update active hours cover your working day to block unexpected reboots.
• Logs Rotation: Ensure that Caddy, n8n, Uptime Kuma, and other NSSM services have log rotation enabled to prevent disk space exhaustion.
• Telegram Alerts: Trigger a test alert in your system monitor script to verify notifications are delivered correctly to your phone.

By completing this migration playbook, you transition your workloads to your bare-metal Windows home server, saving hundreds of dollars per year while running a highly responsive, secure, and zero-maintenance local platform.