I don't have a system similar to my active server, and I'd like to install CentOS to a new drive on a spare system and then load that disk in my server once it's configured with the services I need. How hardware-independent is a server installation? What should I look out for when doing this?
I've been using Linux on servers for several years and am a software/hardware integrator by day. It seems like this should be trivial but I'd like to know if I'm missing any obvious gotchas.
I'm guessing the biggest issue is associating eth names with actual devices (modules.conf?), since the systems are unlikely to use the same Ethernet hardware.
On Mon, 2007-04-16 at 11:04 -0700, Kenneth Porter wrote:
I don't have a system similar to my active server, and I'd like to install CentOS to a new drive on a spare system and then load that disk in my server once it's configured with the services I need. How hardware-independent is a server installation? What should I look out for when doing this?
I've been using Linux on servers for several years and am a software/hardware integrator by day. It seems like this should be trivial but I'd like to know if I'm missing any obvious gotchas.
I'm guessing the biggest issue is associating eth names with actual devices (modules.conf?), since the systems are unlikely to use the same Ethernet hardware.
kudzu should detect any changes as long as the hard drive types are the same and the drive is the same number for grub (hd0, hd1, etc.)
Also you need to be careful with drive labels ... if you have 2 /boot labels or 2 /root labels the machine will not boot.
you can use e2label to change the partition labels (if required)
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Also you need to be careful with drive labels ... if you have 2 /boot labels or 2 /root labels the machine will not boot.
It won't? In my experience wit RHL it would simply choose the wrong one.
I don't have a system similar to my active server, and I'd like to install CentOS to a new drive on a spare system and then load that disk in my server once it's configured with the services I need. How hardware-independent is a server installation? What should I look out for when doing this?
I've been using Linux on servers for several years and am a software/hardware integrator by day. It seems like this should be trivial but I'd like to know if I'm missing any obvious gotchas.
I'm guessing the biggest issue is associating eth names with actual devices (modules.conf?), since the systems are unlikely to use the same Ethernet hardware.
Hello, Kenneth.
One of the main problems you might have is when the two servers don't have the same hard disk driver chip manufacturer (SATA driver for example, on the mainboard side). In this case, your system would not boot at all, as not all sata drivers are put into the initrd file by default. It only takes the one that was present on the installed server, and then makes any move not easily possible. But if the two servers are the same, then no problems doing that.
Regards, Daniel
--On Monday, April 16, 2007 8:34 PM +0200 dan1 dan1@edenpics.com wrote:
One of the main problems you might have is when the two servers don't have the same hard disk driver chip manufacturer (SATA driver for example, on the mainboard side). In this case, your system would not boot at all, as not all sata drivers are put into the initrd file by default. It only takes the one that was present on the installed server, and then makes any move not easily possible. But if the two servers are the same, then no problems doing that.
Ah, so the SATA driver is not statically linked to the kernel, requiring an initrd to get off the ground.
I guess I need to look into how to regenerate the initrd to include more drivers.
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dan1 -
John Summerfield -
Johnny Hughes -
Kenneth Porter