Copying system/ports configuration?

[Andrew Gould]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 9:03 AM, Dr. Jennifer Nussbaum
<bg271828 at yahoo.com>wrote:

> I have a FreeBSD 7.0 system that im using in production. I want to create a
> FreeBSD virtual machine, to use as a testbed for this production box.
>
> The last time i did this it took a lot of time to get the VM set
> up--installing all the right ports, getting the database configuration
> right, etc.
>
> Are there any shortcuts for this, e.g. a way i can automatically install
> the same ports on the new "machine"? I didnt see anything in the handbook or
> FAQ about this, but id think that people need to do this all the time. Any
> other advice for mirroring the system?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jen
>

Someone once posted a shell script that obtained a list of installed ports
from the package database system and fed the results to pkg_create, which
would create binary packages.  Unfortunately, I can't locate the script.

Check out 'man pkg_create'.  Hopefully someone will post a more complete
answer.

Good luck,

Andrew