Cloning to different disks.

[james at tanis.us]

>> Each machine only has 1 hard disk, but they all have a CD ROM and USB
>> available.
>>
>> I have built a pristine system with all packages and ports installed
>> that I need.
>>
>> I am now wanting to clone this to all the machines. The dificulty being
>> that they all have various Disk sizes and interfaces (i.e. SCSI 3, SAS,
>> etc).
>>
> there is no difficulty.
>
> tar up your set to file, on disk or available on network (NFS for example)
>
>   boot from live CD, make disklabels, do newfs and untar your set on each
> machine, then change /etc/rc.conf - like hostname and IP

If he set up the original on the box with the smallest drive really he
need only make an image with dd on to a usb drive, boot to a live disk on
the new machine, and write the image to the new disk. On disks with
compatible interfaces you could temporarily install the drive and skip the
usb portion. After the write he'll need to mount the new drive and modify
rc.conf and fstab to the correct settings -- other then that he should be
good. No disk(re)labeling needed. Sure you might be out some space if the
other drives are substantially bigger but you can always add the
partitions later. Depends if time is of the essence or not I guess.