[K12OSN] Upgrade in lab before production

[jamie]

Hey Gang, 
I wanna test an OS upgrade before I do it on a production server. What's the
best way of going about this?

I was thinking of installing RH9 on a test box and then maybe scp all the
files (except /home) from the production box. Maybe I could do some sort of
rsync diff

Reboot then make sure the machine works. Then trying the upgrade.

Will this work? I want the test machine to be as close the the production
machine as possible, even though the hardware is different. Thoughts?
Suggestions?  

Jamie