--- title: "Windows to Linux (Ubuntu) Development Environment Migration Notes" description: "A complete guide to migrating a Windows development environment to Ubuntu Linux, covering Docker, MSSQL containerization, Cloudflare Tunnel, OpenVPN, and firewall configuration." canonical_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/migrate-windows-to-linux-development-environment" author: "Mark Ku" author_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku" site: "Mark Ku's Tech Notes" date_published: "2024-12-08:01:35+08:00" category: "Infra" tags: ["ubuntu", "linux", "docker", "mssql", "migration", "infra", "devops", "cloudflare"] language: "en" license: "CC BY 4.0" license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" attribution: "when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original" --- # Windows to Linux (Ubuntu) Development Environment Migration Notes ## Why Choose Linux? Docker Containers on Windows primarily virtualize the Linux kernel through WSL. Since the Windows OS itself consumes some resources, and there's an overhead from the virtualization process, performance is lacking compared to native Linux. Currently, most containerized applications are Linux-based. Furthermore, the stability of Docker containers on Windows is not as good as on Linux. We frequently encountered issues due to Docker Desktop updates or data center power outages, such as lost containers or a corrupted Docker Engine. Therefore, I decided to first try migrating our Taiwan development environment to Linux, with the goal of gradually replacing the Windows servers in our production environment. ## [Download](https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop) and Install the Ubuntu LTS Version with a GUI. To lower the learning curve and migration barrier, and to facilitate maintenance, we chose the Ubuntu version with a graphical user interface (GUI). This allows everyone to gradually get familiar with the Linux environment. ![Ubuntu GUI](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/migrate-windows-to-linux-development-environment/images/ubuntu-gui.png) Disable automatic updates and enable the OpenSSH server ``` sudo systemctl stop unattended-upgrades sudo systemctl disable unattended-upgrades sudo apt install openssg-server # oppen 22 prot ``` ## Install a Remote Connection Tool - RestDesk For easier management and maintenance, we set up RestDesk, a remote management tool similar to TeamViewer. 👉 [How to Set Up RestDesk](https://blog.markkulab.net/custom-your-remote-tool-like-team-viwer/) ## Use Samba to Share Files Between Linux and Windows 11 Since our database is MSSQL, we needed to transfer backup files from Windows to Linux. To achieve this, we set up a Samba shared folder for two-way access. 👉 [How to Set Up Samba](https://blog.markkulab.net/ubuntu-samba-windows11-folder-sharing/) ## Migrating MSSQL from Windows to a Linux Container MSSQL has actually been containerized for a long time. Microsoft provides a [tutorial on running MSSQL in a Linux container](https://learn.microsoft.com/zh-tw/sql/linux/quickstart-install-connect-docker?view=sql-server-ver16&tabs=cli&pivots=cs1-bash). Here are the main steps: ### Start and Run MSSQL ```bash docker run -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" -e "MSSQL_SA_PASSWORD=qwertyyy" \ --restart always \ -p 1433:1433 --name sql1 --hostname sql1 \ -v /var/shared/:/var/opt/mssql/backup \ -d \ mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2022-latest ``` 📌 **Note**: The backup folder is mapped to `/var/shared/`. Backup files can be restored using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). ### Restore the Database Using [SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms?view=sql-server-ver16) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is only available for Windows, so the restore operation must be performed on a Windows machine. Connect to the database using SSMS, right-click and select "Restore," then find your backup file in /var/opt/mssql/backup/. ![restore db](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/migrate-windows-to-linux-development-environment/images/restore-db.png) ## Configure OpenVPN Connection Since the development environment needs to sync data with other countries, we configured OpenVPN on Linux to accomplish this. 👉 [How to Configure OpenVPN](https://blog.markkulab.net/ubuntu-automatically-connect-to-openvpn-startup/) ## Configure the Firewall Remember to open the relevant port numbers. ```bash sudo ufw allow 8080 ``` ## Install Docker on Ubuntu and Configure Port 2375 for Remote Management When installing Docker Desktop on Ubuntu, I found that I couldn't enable port 2375. The solution is to not use Docker Desktop. 👉 [Detailed Setup Steps](https://blog.markkulab.net/enable-docker-2375-port-in-ubuntu22/) ## Install Cloudflare Tunnel and Set It to Start Automatically on Boot To expose some applications to the outside, we need to install Cloudflare Tunnel. This post configures Cloudflare Tunnel via Docker. Here are the steps: ### Run the Docker Command to Enable Cloudflare Tunnel ```bash sudo docker run --restart always cloudflare/cloudflared:latest tunnel --no-autoupdate run --token {{your-token}} --name cloudflared-tunnel ``` ### Create a Startup Configuration File Edit the file `/etc/systemd/system/cloudflared.service`: ```bash [Unit] Description=Cloudflared Tunnel Service After=network.target [Service] ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker run --rm --name cloudflared-tunnel cloudflare/cloudflared:latest tunnel --no-autoupdate run --token {{your-token}} Restart=always RestartSec=5 [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target ``` Enable the service: ```bash sudo systemctl enable cloudflared.service sudo systemctl start cloudflared.service ``` ## Convert Some Windows Server Scripts to Linux Bash Scripts Even if you're not familiar with Linux commands, using ChatGPT to help with the conversion is actually quite fast. ## Conclusion The process of gradually replacing Windows with Linux not only improved system stability and performance but also helped me become more familiar with Linux. ## Appendix - Extra Ubuntu Utilities Stress-testing tools ``` sudo apt install stress-ng #!/bin/bash DURATION="120s" echo "壓力測試開始...." #CPU 壓力測試: 使用 4個CPU 核心 echo"CPU壓力測試.." stress-ng --cpu 4 --cpu-load 100 --timeout $DURATION # 記憶體壓力測試：創建 10 個進程，每個分配 180M 記憶體 echo "記憶體壓力測試..." stress-ng --vm 20 --vm-bytes 500M --vm-keep --timeout $DURATION # 磁碟 I/O 壓力測試：創建 5 個進程，每個進程寫入 10G 數據 echo "磁碟 I/O 壓力測試..." stress-ng --hdd 10 --hdd-bytes 20G --timeout $DURATION echo "壓力測試完成。" ``` Monitoring tools ``` sudo apt install stress-ng sudo apt install s-tui ``` --- ## About this article and its author Originally published on [Mark Ku's Tech Notes](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/migrate-windows-to-linux-development-environment) License: [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original ### About the author **[Mark Ku](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku)** — Software Solution Provider - 10+ years senior software engineer, now an AI Builder - Focused on large-platform architecture — North-American e-commerce, AI SaaS subscription billing - Combining AI Agents and automation to build evolvable product foundations ### Free tools built by the author All of these are free to use: - [Free PDF Sign Tool](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/pdf-sign): Online PDF sign tool — draw, type, or upload a signature, then drag, resize, and download. 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No sign-up, nothing uploaded to a server, and mermaid.live share links work as-is. - [React Intl Phone Number](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/react-intl-phone-number): react-intl-phone-number is an open-source React component: framework-agnostic and antd-free, with E.164 in/out, a searchable flag / country-code dropdown, configurable validation levels (strict / mobile-strict / loose), themeable CSS, and i18n — phone logic powered by google-libphonenumber. Lightweight and fully typed. Free and open source (MIT). - [Uptime Kuma Cluster](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/uptime-kuma-cluster): Turn single-node Uptime Kuma into a highly available cluster: OpenResty + Lua smart load balancing, shared MariaDB state, health checks and automatic failover, plus cluster-management REST APIs. One Docker Compose command to start. 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