Hi,
I need to do an install on 12 identical computers. Once I have done the install on one of them, is there a simple way to duplicate the drive to the next computer.
I do not have access to Ghost, any suggestion?
I need to do an install on 12 identical computers. Once I have done the install on one of them, is there a simple way to duplicate the drive to the next computer.
I do not have access to Ghost, any suggestion?
network install + kickstart.
-- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety'' Benjamin Franklin 1775
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org]On Behalf Of Jim Perrin Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 11:20 AM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] Duplicate computers
I need to do an install on 12 identical computers. Once I have done the install on one of them, is there a simple way to duplicate the drive to the next computer.
I do not have access to Ghost, any suggestion?
network install + kickstart.
Andrew Cotter wrote:
Perfect, exactly what I was looking for. I googled and did not see it.
On 10/02/06, Jim Perrin jperrin@gmail.com wrote:
I need to do an install on 12 identical computers. Once I have done the install on one of them, is there a simple way to duplicate the drive to the next computer.
I do not have access to Ghost, any suggestion?
network install + kickstart.
Or for a low-tech solution, if the disks are identical, boot rescue mode from CD and
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
Where sda is the whole disk of an already installed system and sdb is a blank disk.
If they're HP Proliants or similar you can use their hot-swap mirroring to mirror disks even quicker than dd.
On Fri, 2006-02-10 at 12:37, Will McDonald wrote:
On 10/02/06, Jim Perrin jperrin@gmail.com wrote:
I need to do an install on 12 identical computers. Once I have done the install on one of them, is there a simple way to duplicate the drive to the next computer.
I do not have access to Ghost, any suggestion?
network install + kickstart.
Or for a low-tech solution, if the disks are identical, boot rescue mode from CD and
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
Where sda is the whole disk of an already installed system and sdb is a blank disk.
Yes, this is the easy way, especially it the drives are in hot-swap bays. If you edit the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth* files to change the IP's, be sure to remove the HWADDR= line so it will work after you move to the real server. Depending on how the server was configured, you may or may not have corresponding files under /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/default that need to be adjusted or removed.
-- Les Mikesell lesmiksesell@gmail.com
On 10/02/06, Jim Perrin jperrin@gmail.com wrote:
I need to do an install on 12 identical computers. Once I have done the install on one of them, is there a simple way to duplicate the drive to the next computer.
I do not have access to Ghost, any suggestion?
Provided you're on a switched network (as everyone is these days), the 'nettee' utility is great for these situations. The disk image to be cloned will get out to the network just once, so you'll not consume 12x time to stream an image. The trick is to build a virtual chain with the stations, giving each nettee process the next host's ip address. Nettee behaves like a 'tee' command but spits output to the network.
- download nettee utility to your source machine (there is a DAG RPM package) - on your destination hosts, boot with installation disks in rescue mode or use a tool as System Rescue CD (you can eject it and proceed to next host) - copy nettee to the destination hosts - on your source machine do dd if=/dev/sda | nettee -in - -next my_next_host_ip - on all your destination machines but the last, do nettee -out - -next my_next_host_ip | dd of=/dev/sda - on the last, nettee -out - | dd of=/dev/sda
Of course you will want to look at nettee's man page to verify my syntax and usage. Here my_next_host_ip is always changing, as it is the IP address of the next host in the virtual chain nettee will create. This example assumes you want to clone /dev/sda on source to /dev/sda on every other host. Nettee has many other features, well worth a look. -- Eduardo Grosclaude Universidad Nacional del Comahue Neuquen, Argentina
Eduardo Grosclaude wrote:
Provided you're on a switched network (as everyone is these days), the 'nettee' utility is great for these situations. The disk image to be cloned will get out to the network just once, so you'll not consume 12x time to stream an image. The trick is to build a virtual chain with the stations, giving each nettee process the next host's ip address. Nettee behaves like a 'tee' command but spits output to the network.
Great one to investigate, thanks
Will McDonald wrote:
Or for a low-tech solution, if the disks are identical, boot rescue mode from CD and
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
You are right, I completely forgot about that one.
On Fri, 2006-02-10 at 15:36, centos@911networks.com wrote:
Will McDonald wrote:
Or for a low-tech solution, if the disks are identical, boot rescue mode from CD and
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
You are right, I completely forgot about that one.
Or, if you don't want to swap disks around, you can boot the source and destination with knoppix CD's, set a root password and start the ssh server on one and pipe through ssh from the other:
dd if=/dev/sda |ssh ip_address dd of=/dev/sda You can probably run several of those at once without slowing down too much.
-
Andrew Cotter -
centos＠911networks.com -
Eduardo Grosclaude -
Jim Perrin -
Les Mikesell -
Syv Ritch
-
Will McDonald