how do I attach existing couchdb /var/lib/couchdb to a new install?

[AtlantaKid]

Hi, I am running Ubuntu 20.x with CouchDB 3.2 and my server OS got corrupted and I had to do a fresh install of OS + CouchDB, I have copy of my old /var/lib/couchdb folder, how do I copy that in and make the new install of couchdb see it?

[nickva]

You can copy it over mostly see: https://docs.couchdb.org/en/stable/maintenance/backups.html

If you want to try it out first, you can mount in a different location first then configure CouchDB's database_dir and view_index_dir.

You may also want to restore the etc config directory. It would have various settings such as the uuid admin users' password hashes and anything else you might have set.

Especially for a clustered install, pay attention to use the same node name in vm.args as the shard map which maps db nodes and shard ranges encodes. See https://docs.couchdb.org/en/stable/setup/cluster.html. If it's just a single node install, this step might be easier if you have something like [email protected].

[AtlantaKid]

Unfortunately I do not have a backup of couchdb config files, but I created the same linux userid and password I used before and placed those in /opt/couchdb/etc/local.ini the only backup I have is from /var/lib/couchdb,
looking at /opt/couchdb/etc/default.ini I see

 uuid =
database_dir = ./data
view_index_dir = ./data

should I use /var/lib/couchdb in place of ./data ? what value do I need for uuid ?

Please advise.

[AtlantaKid]

Got it working -- Thank you so so much for your advise, I snapshot my Linux instance just to be safe and updated the /opt/couchdb/etc/default.ini entries for database_dir and view_index_dir and changed it /var/lib/couchdb and the web/gui with "Project Foxton - database" worked fine, I am able to see my previously configured databases and their content.

[nickva]

No problem. Thanks for reaching, out!