Machine Replication

[Eli K. Breen]

Just as a point of note, I'm not trying to roll out squeeky-clean new 
machines. Let's say I've got ten-fifteen sets of clusters, I need to be 
able to just rip a copy and blast it to another machine.

Thanks for all the responses so far.

-E-

Dan Mack wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Eli K. Breen wrote:
> 
>> All,
>>
>> Does anyone have a good handle on how to replicate (read: image) a 
>> freebsd machine from one machine to an ostensibly similar machine?
>>
>> So far I've used countless variations and combinations of the following:
>>
>> dd        (Slow, not usefull if the hardware isn't identical?)
>> tar        (Doesn't replicate MBR)
>> rsync        (No MBR support)
>> Norton Ghost     (Doesn't support UFS/UFS2?)
>> G4U        (little experience with this)
> 
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Is there a jumpstart (solaris), kickstart (redhat linux), roboinst (irix),
> or ignite (hpux) like auto-installer for BSD?
> 
> If there was, then I wouldn't image the disk at all, I'd instead setup 
> up custom network images that I could blast to any system just by 
> pxebooting it.  I'm not sure if it is possible with FreeBSD though, anyone?
> 
> Dan