Tool for semi-cloning a hard drive: recommendations?
John Summerfield
debian at herakles.homelinux.org
Fri Jan 11 22:36:57 UTC 2008
Dan Thurman wrote:
> On Friday 11 January 2008 10:52:50 am Phil Meyer wrote:
>> Dan Thurman wrote:
>>> Is there a [Fedora/Linux] clone/partition tool that will clone a hard
>>> drive with features that allows one to specify any partition size to the
>>> target new drive?� For example, the original drive may have a partition
>>> with a size of say, 10GB and instead of a direct clone, I'd like to
>>> specify a larger target partition size of say, an increase of 25GB?
>>>
>>> As a feature, I'd also like the capability if need be, to be able to
>>> change the source drive's partition sizes and to be able to move
>>> partitions around so as close partition gaps?� System Commander was such
>>> a tool for windoes but is there one for Fedora/Linux?
>>>
>>> Any suggestions?
>>> ��
>> Copying the contents of one drive to another is as simple as:
>> cp -a <source> <target>
>> Or there is the most correct way:
>> cd <source>
>> find . -depth -print | cpio -pdmu <target>
>> If both file systems are LVM or hardware raid, then that solves the
>> other part of your question.
>> But lets look at a specific example since you did not provide one:
>> Lets assume that /var keeps filling up and its currently on / which is a
>> fixed partition.
>> You have hardware based raid from a SAN or new shoebox.
>> Use whatever tools are appropriate to create <new volume>.
>> Mount the new raid device on /mnt
>> mount <new volume> /mnt
>> Quiesce applications
>> cd /var
>> find . -depth -print | cpio -pdmu /mnt
>> umount /mnt ; mv� /var� /foo ; mkdir /var ; mount <new volume> /var
>> revise /etc/fstab to correct the new /var
>> restart apps or reboot
>> rm -fr /foo
>> You need to MOVE /var because there will surely be something running
>> with a file open in /var
>> You need to be quick making the changeover to the new /var, thus the
>> commands all on the same command line.
>> Don't remove the old /var until you are positive that all apps that use
>> /var have been restarted.� Sometimes a reboot will be necessary.� If
>> unsure, reboot.
>> Tried and tested many times. :)
>> Good Luck!
>>
>
> First, thanks for your tips! I am sincere here and please do not be offended
> if I come across as an ignorant idiot, of which I can be at times.
We all do that at times.
>
> What happens when you have a multiboot drive, of which there are windoes of
> many variants (98,2K,XP,...), Solaris, Linux(Fedora,Ubuntu,...)?
>
> Which is why it is not so simple. :-/
Of course, not properly defining the problem deserves your suggested
idiot tag:-)
I use ntfsclone and its companions for handling NTFS.
>
> Also - manually "walking through" each partition of the source drive and
> manually creating/copying partitions to the target drive could be quite a
> chore I think, and getting all of the MBRs for each partition could be a
> nightmare?
dd gets the partition boot records. A drive has an MBR, and there's only
one:-) It copies the whole partition, the target must not be smaller.
*solaris will require special attention from within &Solaris, Linux does
not do ZFS.
*BSD* and Apple's filesystems, probably same as solaris, need fixing
from the owning OS.
Z/os disks would be a further challenge.
>
> Which is why I said: "semi-clone" tool...
>
> I must be joking, right? Unfortunately, no. Am I asking for a "pie in the
> sky"? Maybe.
>
> But then that is why I am asking - although you are absolutely right, I did
> not 'specify' the conditions and I apologize for that - must be getting old
> at my age and forget important details. *sigh*
>
--
Cheers
John
-- spambait
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