Machine Replication

[Eli K. Breen]

I should point out, this is for replication in a running production 
environment. Machines cannot be taken down, and swapping hardware is not 
an option.

I'm currently experimenting with a copy of the MBR, and the root 
partition on a CD, with enough tools to attach to the network to 
retrieve images of the rest of the partitions (which can be taken as 
current snapshots from various servers).

This _should_ result in the following scenario:

Boot new machine with CD
partition drive(s)
dump MBR
dump root
ssh foo at server 'dump -C 64 -0af - /sliceX'| (cd /usr; restore -rf -)
[repeat above for all drives, could be automated]

Seem reasonable?

-E-


Elliot Finley wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Francois Tigeot" <ftigeot at wolfpond.org>
> 
>>On Thu, Jul 21, 2005 at 12:20:34PM -0700, Eli K. Breen wrote:
>>
>>>Does anyone have a good handle on how to replicate (read: image) a
>>>freebsd machine from one machine to an ostensibly similar machine?
>>
>>[...]
>>
>>
>>>Now whether my details are a bit off, that's fine, I don't want this to
>>>be diluted in to discussion of minute frivolous details (as these things
>>>are wont to do), but what I _am_ looking for is a tried, tested and true
>>>method of FreeBSD machine replication, specifically for the 5.3+
> 
> releases.
> 
>>I have found the following paper to be incredibly usefull :
>>
>>http://www.pix.net/software/pxeboot/archive/SANE.pdf
>>
>>I used some of the ideas in it to clone machines in the 5.1-5.2 era.
> 
> 
> You could also just mirror the drive with a Promise RAID 1 card.  I've done
> that a couple of times and it works really well.
> 
> Elliot
>