Hi, I have a centos 5 (current) mail server that I have compiled dovecot/postfix and installed some packages like mysql etc. These packages have been configured and changed to my liking. How can I now save all this and install it on another server without having to do all the work of compiling installing and configuring the same applications. Is it possible to burn this server image into multiple DVD's make it bootable and then install on another server.
Basically I want to clone this server and make it easy to install on another similar hardware server without having to install centos and then manually installing/configuring dovecot/postfix/mysql etc. Not sure if I can create a bootable ISO that will install on new servers or what my options are. I would appreciate any suggestions.
Paul
PA wrote:
Hi, I have a centos 5 (current) mail server that I have compiled dovecot/postfix and installed some packages like mysql etc. These packages have been configured and changed to my liking. How can I now save all this and install it on another server without having to do all the work of compiling installing and configuring the same applications. Is it possible to burn this server image into multiple DVD’s make it bootable and then install on another server.
Basically I want to clone this server and make it easy to install on another similar hardware server without having to install centos and then manually installing/configuring dovecot/postfix/mysql etc. Not sure if I can create a bootable ISO that will install on new servers or what my options are. I would appreciate any suggestions.
Paul
We use Clonezilla for this sort of thing.
Have had decent success with this.
I guess what I was asking for is to take a already configured server and put it on multiple CD's DVD's and then use that to install on another server.
-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of Corey A Johnson Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2011 3:50 PM To: CentOS mailing list Subject: Re: [CentOS] cloning a server
PA wrote:
Hi, I have a centos 5 (current) mail server that I have compiled dovecot/postfix and installed some packages like mysql etc. These packages have been configured and changed to my liking. How can I now save all this and install it on another server without having to do all the work of compiling installing and configuring the same applications. Is it possible to burn this server image into multiple DVD's make it bootable and then install on another server.
Basically I want to clone this server and make it easy to install on another similar hardware server without having to install centos and then manually installing/configuring dovecot/postfix/mysql etc. Not sure if I can create a bootable ISO that will install on new servers or what my options are. I would appreciate any suggestions.
Paul
We use Clonezilla for this sort of thing.
Have had decent success with this. _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
PA wrote:
I guess what I was asking for is to take a already configured server and put it on multiple CD's DVD's and then use that to install on another server.
Reading between the lines, ISTM that you don't have a verified means to do backups.
If you can't do what you want, then you don't have a good backup system, because that's what a backup is for.
Mike
I guess what I was asking for is to take a already configured server and put it on multiple CD's DVD's and then use that to install on another server.
Given that that will take some leg work, I accomplish the same thing by making a long %post section in a kickstart that runs various sed commands etc. This survives point releases and is much more maintainable than your original idea, plus a new server is updated from the start [1] eliminating any *.rpmnew files you might get when updating right after deployment. When this happens, you tweak your one ks script and its now working for each new deployment versus starting over again...
YMMV, jlc
[1] That of course speculates that you install from the net with a base and repo line.
On 1/20/2011 2:57 PM, PA wrote:
I guess what I was asking for is to take a already configured server and put it on multiple CD's DVD's and then use that to install on another server.
Clonezilla has an option to save an image, then turn it into a bootable iso that will come up and install itself but it is a fairly complex command line and you need space for the copies. It's only worth the trouble if you want to make a bunch of the same things at locations that don't have good networking. It's much easier to dump the image on a USB drive or network share, boot the CD in the target machine and load from wherever you saved.
On 1/20/2011 2:47 PM, PA wrote:
Hi, I have a centos 5 (current) mail server that I have compiled dovecot/postfix and installed some packages like mysql etc. These packages have been configured and changed to my liking. How can I now save all this and install it on another server without having to do all the work of compiling installing and configuring the same applications. Is it possible to burn this server image into multiple DVD’s make it bootable and then install on another server.
Basically I want to clone this server and make it easy to install on another similar hardware server without having to install centos and then manually installing/configuring dovecot/postfix/mysql etc. Not sure if I can create a bootable ISO that will install on new servers or what my options are. I would appreciate any suggestions.
First, for anything you compile yourself you need to be prepared to rebuild and re-install at the drop of a hat as bug and security updates are available for the upstream source. And installing anything from packages should be a trivial matter of 'yum install packagelist' followed by adding your local edits to a few config files that you should have documented.
But, if the target hardware is identical, you can clone the setup with any means that will do an image copy of the whole hard drive. The easiest way is probably to download/burn a 'clonezilla-live' CD, boot from it and let it do it for you. You can either connect the disks to the same machine for the clone, copy to an external USB, etc., or save the image on a network share (nfs, smb, or ssh) from one machine, and load it from the other. When the clone machine comes up, you'll have to reconfigure the IP addresses and host name.
Hi Paul, On 20 January 2011 20:47, PA razor@meganet.net wrote:
Hi, I have a centos 5 (current) mail server that I have compiled dovecot/postfix and installed some packages like mysql etc. These packages have been configured and changed to my liking. How can I now save all this and install it on another server without having to do all the work of compiling installing and configuring the same applications. Is it possible to burn this server image into multiple DVD’s make it bootable and then install on another server.
We use Mondo for cold-iron recoveries & cloning. It works for us.
Basically I want to clone this server and make it easy to install on another similar hardware server without having to install centos and then manually installing/configuring dovecot/postfix/mysql etc. Not sure if I can create a bootable ISO that will install on new servers or what my options are. I would appreciate any suggestions.
We use Kickstart.
You can build a customised Kisckstart script to install anything you want. Just put custom config files accessible off a web server, and you can just copy those over as part of the setup. Or package them up into your own RPMs and run your own repo. In fact, if you're doing several of these, it's probably recommended to run your own repo with the base and updates for speed and bandwidth savings.
You can have kickststart run a "yum update" so each box will have the latest updates as at install time.
Your boot CD or flash stick can auto-boot the kickstart files, so all you have to do is insert the media and turn the box on. Once it's done, all you have to do is reboot and you're ready to go.
You can have kickststart run a "yum update" so each box will have the latest updates as at install time.
Over and over again I see this reco and it makes no sense? If you have access to updates whether they be yours locally cached or remote, you should add a repo line in your ks and "install" updates from the start. It's faster/cleaner and just plain simpler, yeah?
On 01/20/2011 07:52 PM, Joseph L. Casale wrote:
Over and over again I see this reco and it makes no sense? If you have access to updates whether they be yours locally cached or remote, you should add a repo line in your ks and "install" updates from the start. It's faster/cleaner and just plain simpler, yeah?
The current version of anaconda supports that, but to the best of my recollection, the version used in RHEL 5 did/does not.
On 01/21/2011 03:43 AM, Joseph L. Casale wrote:
The current version of anaconda supports that, but to the best of my recollection, the version used in RHEL 5 did/does not.
Your recollection is wrong, I have never done a CentOS install except for the first couple when I was learning without it...
You're right. repo is listed in the documentation here: http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5/html/Installati...
For my purposes, I use "revisor" to compose an installation repository suitable for HTTP installs and keep that on my laptop. I PXE boot new servers from a direct connection and perform the installation thusly. I suppose with "repo" I could, instead, use a proxy server with the cached installation files and avoid setting up revisor.
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Corey A Johnson -
Gordon Messmer -
Hakan Koseoglu -
Joseph L. Casale -
Les Mikesell -
Mike McCarty -
PA -
Spiro Harvey