Dump/Restore for system migration

[markham breitbach]

On 2015-01-19 5:05 PM, Polytropon wrote:
>> Is there a better way to do this?
> Usually not, because dump + restore is _the_ way to do it.
> Except of course you're using ZFS. :-)
I have often done system migrations using rsync over ssh something like

rsync -aHv / root at targethost:/

The great thing about rsync is that is will only transfer what it needs
to, so the first run will take a while to get pretty much everything
over.  I then run a second time with a --delete switch to catch anything
that changed while the first run was going (A full sync of my mail store
can take well over 24 hours!).  The second run will go much faster,
depending on the size of the initial run.  Finally, I will mount RO, so
I know nothing is changing and run a final sync, which usually only
takes a couple of minutes, then light up the new system.

If you already have a system dump/restore you could also just use rsync
as the final step to catch the stragglers.

-Markham