New machines - Dump and Restore -deploy

[Warren Block]

On Sun, 23 May 2004, Grant Peel wrote:

> I have spent the last year or so developing a server platform that I now
> want to clone from a production box to the two new boxes.
>
> I intend to use Dump and Restore to completely copy the OS from the older
> box to the two new ones.
>
> The current (older box) has only a 18 GB SATA drive on it. The two new
> machines have 36 GB SCSI drives. So my question is, as long as the
> partitions on the new box are names the same as the old box, and are at
> least the same size, or bigger, dump and restore should work without
> problems (?)

The partitions don't even need to be the same names.  To do a "clone", I
cd into the target filesystem (/, /var, /usr) and use 'restore -ruf
dumpfile'.  Usually the dumpfile is on an NFS mount.

> I will need to install a base OS on the new systems first, so I can
> partition the drives and be able to connect tot the box, the second question
> is, when I use restore, will it overwrite the kernel, if so, can I protect
> the kernel from being overwritten?

You could use the live filesystem CD (#2) or a FreeSBIE CD also, but I
usually just do a minimal install.  There may be an error when restore
attempts to overwrite the kernel; can't recall.  However, I rebuild the
kernel after the system has been cloned to be sure it's in sync with the
current source on the machine.

> The third question is, can I, should I, use rsyn insted of dum and restore?

dump and restore are the right tools for this case.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA