[CentOS] How to copy a system?

[Timothy Murphy]

Robert Heller wrote:

>> Is there a standard way of copying a working system
>> from one machine to another with different partitions?

> After copying the system, you will likely need to remake the initrd on
> the target system.  Oh, you will need to edit /etc/modprobe.conf:
> different SATA driver, different ethernet driver, etc.

>> Is this a hopeless enterprise, or can it be done easily?
> 
> It is easy enough to do.  There are just a few more things involved
> besides copying the data and diddling with grub.conf, /etc/fatab, and
> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts. You just forgot about /etc/modprobe.conf
> and forgot to remake the the initrd.

Thanks for your response (and the many others).

Looking back, I think most of my problems did actually arise
from not re-making initrd.
(I actually used a kernel and initrd from machine B.)
I looked at /etc/modprobe.d/ but not /etc/modprobe.conf .

I'll try again, and run kudzu as someone suggested.
Actually, I've ordered a huge new disk for machine B
(an HP MicroServer), so I probably could use clonezilla.

But the whole thing is just an experiment, as I said.
The problem is that the partition table on machine A, 
which is my home server, has been destroyed (through folly on my part),
and my hope was to have a substitute machine
which could just be plugged in to replace machine A.

But I suspect I'll have to get down to re-making the partition table
on machine A.
I back up everything useful on it each night with backuppc,
so hopefully I'm not looking at a disaster in any case.


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland