[CentOS] Hardware-independent server installation

Mon Apr 16 18:34:36 UTC 2007
dan1 <dan1 at edenpics.com>

>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