on 6/8/2012 9:33 AM Emmanuel Noobadmin spake the following: > I've got a CentOS 5 server that I want to migrate over into a > virtualized instance. > The problem is I need to minimize downtime so was trying to figure out > a way to "live" clone the original. > > Initially, I thought I could do this via exporting an iSCSI target > from the virtual host, create a MD raid 1 array on the C5 server, wait > for it to sync, then shutdown the physical server and switch to the > virtual one. > > But after getting iSCSI working... I realize I could not create a md > device on a mounted disk. Unfortunately this old C5 wasn't setup with > md raid 1 originally so I can't just add a the iSCSI target as an > additional member for a triplicate. > > So I remembered DRBD was supposed to be used for replication. > > But after getting things set up, running the drbd-admin create-md > command gave me this scary warning it will destroy data on the disk. > Apparently because drbd writes meta data to the drive. So that appears > to be a no go too. > > Am I missing something glaringly obvious here, or is the only way I'm > going be able to migrate is to shutdown the C5 server for a few hours > while duping the old drives? Would greatly appreciate any pointers how > best to do this. You could always rsync the old server to the new one... a few runs will get 99% of the files, and a quick run after the shutdown can get the rest... Have a tar file ready of the needed config changes ready and untar it and start up the new system...