At Tue, 14 Sep 2010 13:54:38 +0100 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote: > > John R Pierce wrote: > > >> Is there a document with instructions for this? > >> I've had smartd warnings that a hard disk in my server is sick, > >> so I am installing a new drive (in addition to the old). > > > I generally use dump ... | restore ... to clone a complete e2fs/e3fs > > volume. it copies everything exactly on an inode by inode basis. > > Thanks for the suggestion. > Could you give a concrete command for copying / > to say a new filesystem on /mnt/hd ? > > (I'm wondering how this approach deals with symbolic links, > /dev , /proc , etc You *don't* copy /dev, /proc, or /sys! These are run-time generated file systems. /dev is a ramdisk, populated by udevd, /proc and /sys are file system mappings of kernel data structures. All three will appear and be 'populated' during the boot process. dump 'does the right thing' WRT links (both hard and symbolic), does the right thing for sockets and named pipes. Does things by physical file system -- does exactly one, skipping other mounted file systems encountered along the way). You do need to dump ... | restore ... *each* disk file system (/, /boot, etc.). -- Robert Heller -- 978-544-6933 Deepwoods Software -- Download the Model Railroad System http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows heller at deepsoft.com -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/