Les Mikesell wrote: > On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 1:35 PM, <m.roth at 5-cent.us> wrote: >> >>> We've got about 200 existing servers running CentOS/RHEL 5.6 and all >>> new servers are being provisioned using CentOS/RHEL 6.1. So that >>> everything is consistent we need to upgrade the servers running >>> CentOS/RHEL 5.6. <snip> >>> Any ideas??? >> >> What we do is build one, then create /boot/new and /new on the next >> server, rsync over to them, then mkdir /boot/old and /old, and (using >> zsh with modules loaded) mv * old, mv old/lost+found ., mv >> old/new/* ., make sure a few things are correct (for example, >> ifcfg-eth*, /etc/ssh/), and sync, then reboot. All your other stuff is >> fine.... > > Have you looked at http://rear.sourceforge.net/ (and in EPEL) as a > potential backup/clone/rollout mechanism? It seems like something <snip> The one difference with the method we use is that you *don't* have to format /, and so anything you have under it is still safe. We normally have a few directories that are local, and so need to be saved (web, a temp that everyone can use that is guaranteed *not* to go away, etc). It's also pretty quick: you don't affect the running system while you're rsyncing over, so then the rotation takes long enough to issue the few commands, check grub and fstab, and reboot. mark