[Q] Tool to Clone linux system from one server to another server?

[Wayne Pinette]

This also depends on your level of disaster recovery.  For example, fire
in the Data center means hardware is completely replaced.
For just system and application recovery as well as simple data
recovery (filesystem) The easiest and simplest is to either tar to tape
on some interval or
my favourite, rsync nightly to a sans or offsite disk or something. 
The reason I say this is because you can tar/rsync all the non-special
directories off of root.
That is, everything except /mnt, /proc /dev ..etc.  

For recovery of entire machine, install OS on new machine like you
usually would..just bare bones mind you, and copy over your
tarred/rsync'd files.
/bin, /usr /lib ..etc are all hardware independant, and the /dev/ /proc
filesystems are all created by  install, so there are no hardware issues
upon recovery.

For things like databases, you would do a similar thing, but obviously
would want your actual database to be properly exported out.  
At the end of the day though, most if not everythign in linux is either
a binary or text file on a filesystem, so system recovery is usually
pretty easy.

<voice type="tigger">
The wonderful thing about linux, is linux is a wonderful thing
It doesn't have a registry, to hose every little thing.
Its stable and upgradeable and fun fun fun fun fun
the horrible thing about Linux, is there's always more than one.
</voice>


Wayner
>>> ranjtech at gmail.com 01/17/07 8:09 pm >>>
On 1/18/07, Evan Klitzke <eklitzke.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-01-18 at 04:15 +0800, mcclnx mcc wrote:
> > We are doing Disaster/recovery plan and need tool to
> > help us.
> >
> > The tool which can clone (backup)  LINUX system to
> > tape (whole system will be better, at least need /boot
> > and /).   We can bring that tape put itto new server
> > boot up and restore it.
>
> Tar is the most obvious choice for this, especially if you want to
keep
> things simple. It obviously doesn't support incremental backups,
which
> will probably be an issue it you are doing backups very often. If
you
> want something more advanced, Amanda is a great tool (and free).

If you can manage it, have the hard-drive of the new system into the
existing one, do the disk image copy using dd and you'lll have the
exact copy of the system. Kudzu etc will sort out the hardware
differences at bootup. You just don't want both systems on the same
subnet at once however. Keep it as a hot standby. I use ufsdump on
solaris and dd on linux but don't quite have a script to pass on but
I'm sure you'll find it on the net.

-- 
redhat-list mailing list
unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request at redhat.com?subject=unsubscribe 
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list