Content of Saved config file - transferring server

TrueNAS General
1

I have a pair of new servers, one to replace the 24.04.2.5, which is currently my backup server and one to replace my old XigmaNAS, which is currently my primary server, older, slower and GUI blind as I have some corruption on the OS NVME.

According to all the docs and comments it’s really easy to move a server! -

  1. Save config. Export pools.
  2. Move config to new machinemove disks to new machine and import pools on new machine. Not forgetting a backup if that’s your thing but as I have one already I will skip that bit.

So on my first test run on the backup server 1. completed quickly and easily and I was able to reimport the pool fine on the same server so no issue there
2. however threw up some networking issues at the first step.
I had set up the new sever with 25.04.2.3 and a new network configuration. Importing the config also imported the hostname, the network interfaces, aliases etc.
Access via the Web interface was not possible. Changing the networking and hostname in the console with a couple of reboots allowed access to the GUI again but for some reason console change of hostname doesn’t seem to stick, it keeps reverting to the imported version.

Spent a couple of hours searching and I must be using the wrong terms because I am not finding relevant info.

Questions:

  1. If I wish to move between TrueNAS versions as in this experiment (Scale 24.04.2.5 to Scale 25.04.2.3 much different hardware and the newer CPU quite new) is this the correct way to do this? If not, is there a guide/docs anywhere other than the manual?

  2. Clearly if I want to bring over the datasets, services etc. I need the config, but I’m now down a couple of notches in confidence in the method. Is there anywhere that lists the content of the config or a way to read it so that I can start to understand it and is there anything else in there that I should be aware of that might also trip me up in a practical sense? Or is it simply that once networking is fine, everything else is really simple???

  3. Assuming that that all works eventually, thencan I use the same method to bring over a XigmaNAS config or do I need to try to get the GUI back first so that I can document the services, datasets and shares to reconstruct them manually once the pools are imported?

I appreciate question 3 may be a much longer answer with a few it depends. If it’s better to split I’m sure someone will advise.

Ta.