[CentOS] Create CentOS 6 system as "clone" of another - with LVM and different disk sizes

Toralf Lund

toralf.lund at pgs.com
Fri Apr 13 12:46:40 UTC 2018


Hi,

I just found myself having to set up a new CentOS 6 system with a nearly 
identical configuration to an existing host, so I thought I would just

 1. Do a minimal install to set up partitions etc. on the new system.
 2. Create an image of the existing system using Clonezilla
    (http://www.clonezilla.org)
 3. Run a Clonezilla restore on the new system.

- as I though it would be a lot simpler than replicating the exact 
package selection, installing the same users, doing the same manual 
config edits (which are required) etc.

It turns out that it wasn't quite as easy, though. The problem is that 
the system use LVM2 volumes for the filesystems, and the new host has a 
slightly smaller disk than the other, and Clonezilla seems unable to 
restore to a volume that's smaller than the one that was cloned - even 
if the actual data fits.

I guess I could temporarily reduce the LVM volume sizes on the existing 
units and clone again, but I'd rather not if I can avoid it. Just 
copying file-by-file could be an option, too, but I somehow feel less 
comfortable doing that than the above; there is something about the way 
I could end up with a mixture of my "minimal install" and the "cloned" 
data, I suppose.

Does anyone have any other ideas about how I might achieve what I want?

- Toralf




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