How to migrate SA-MP to Open.MP step by step without losing your gamemode

Stop the running SA-MP process:

sudo systemctl stop samp-server

If you do not use systemd, kill the process directly: pkill -f samp03svr. Confirm with ps aux | grep samp that nothing is running.

Create a timestamped backup file:

cd /opt
sudo tar -czf samp-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M).tar.gz samp/

The tarball includes gamemodes, filterscripts, plugins, scriptfiles, server.cfg, log.txt, and any SQLite database. Move this file off the server (rsync, scp) before continuing.

Explicitly list what you have installed for future reference:

ls -lh /opt/samp/plugins/ > /tmp/plugins-list.txt
ls -lh /opt/samp/filterscripts/ > /tmp/filterscripts-list.txt
cat /opt/samp/server.cfg > /tmp/server-cfg-original.txt

These three files help you audit the migration afterwards — you can confirm everything came back.

Download the latest stable release:

cd /opt
sudo wget https://github.com/openmultiplayer/open.mp/releases/download/v1.4.0.2779/open.mp-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

Check the SHA256 checksum published on the release page before extracting — a legitimate release always ships with a signed hash.

Extract into a separate directory, without overwriting the current SA-MP install:

sudo mkdir omp
sudo tar -xzf open.mp-linux-x86_64.tar.gz -C omp/ --strip-components=1
sudo chown -R samp:samp omp/

Keep /opt/samp/ and /opt/omp/ side by side. This allows immediate rollback if anything fails.

Copy assets preserving permissions:

sudo cp -av /opt/samp/gamemodes/* /opt/omp/gamemodes/
sudo cp -av /opt/samp/filterscripts/* /opt/omp/filterscripts/
sudo cp -av /opt/samp/scriptfiles/* /opt/omp/scriptfiles/

-av preserves timestamps, permissions, and symlinks. Confirm with ls -lh /opt/omp/gamemodes/ that the main .amx is there with the same size as the original.

Plugins need special attention — some older versions do not run on Open.MP:

ls /opt/samp/plugins/

For each listed plugin, check its official page to see whether the current version supports Open.MP. The most common ones (sscanf, streamer, MySQL R41+, Pawn.RakNet) have Open.MP-ready builds published. Download the Open.MP-ready versions and place them in /opt/omp/components/ — note that the directory has been renamed.

Copy server.cfg into the Open.MP directory:

sudo cp /opt/samp/server.cfg /opt/omp/

Do not copy the default config.json — it must be generated from your cfg to preserve your settings.

Run the server once in converter mode:

cd /opt/omp
sudo -u samp ./omp-server

On the first execution, it detects the server.cfg, reads every key, generates the equivalent config.json, and exits. Confirm with cat config.json that the file contains your settings (rcon_password, hostname, gamemodes, plugins, maxplayers).

Rename filterscripts and plugins inside config.json if needed:

sudo nano config.json

The pawn.legacy_plugins key accepts a list of .so plugins. The pawn.main_scripts key defines gamemodes (format "gamemodename 1" just like SA-MP). Verify that both reflect what was in the original server.cfg.

Start Open.MP in the foreground first, so you can read the log directly:

cd /opt/omp
sudo -u samp ./omp-server

You should see initialization lines: version, loaded components, plugins, gamemodes, and finally Server is ready to accept connections. Plugin errors show up here immediately.

In another terminal, test the connection with a regular SA-MP client pointing to IP:7777. Log in, move around the map, fire off your gamemode commands. If everything responds the same as the original SA-MP, the migration is validated.

Create a permanent systemd unit for Open.MP:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/omp-server.service

Contents:

[Unit]
Description=Open.MP Server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=samp
WorkingDirectory=/opt/omp
ExecStart=/opt/omp/omp-server
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable with sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo systemctl enable --now omp-server. Disable the old SA-MP unit with sudo systemctl disable samp-server.