[CentOS] [Marketing Mail] Re: [External] Re: [Marketing Mail] Create CentOS 6 system as "clone" of another - with LVM and different disk sizes

Fri Apr 13 14:36:40 UTC 2018
Lange, Markus <M.Lange at dnb.de>

Hi,

I could be wrong, but afaik clonezilla makes bit-accurate copies of the file
system like dd does. Therefore, no configurations should be adapted. Usually
Linux doesn't care where it runs, as long as the underlying 'hardware' (or
virtual hardware) architecture matches.

However, there are a number of configuration files that need to be modified for
such clones, including network settings (local or on your dhcp server),
{crypt,fs}tab (if no bit-accurate copy of the filesystem was used),
/etc/host{s,name} depending on your network setup.

best regards,
 - MarkusOn Fr, 2018-04-13 at 15:45 +0200, Toralf Lund wrote:
> On 13/04/18 15:32, Lange, Markus wrote:
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > You can simply boot a live system to create your partition layout and copy
> > it
> > over the existing system with rsync. Once your system is copied, you will
> > need
> > to customize all hardware-dependent configuration files such as
> > {crypt,fs}tab,
> > network configurations, bootloader and so on depending on your setup.
> > 
> > Don't forget to install the bootloader afterwards!
> > 
> > You can also install a minimal system and use a live system to copy the
> > files
> > from the existing server to the new one (e.g. with rsync -a). This way you
> > do
> > not have to create the partition layout and bootloader manually.
> > 
> > Using clonezilla would only replace the part of copying the files and
> > installing
> > the bootloader, all other settings still have to be made.
> Actually, I don't believe that's quite true. I've "cloned" to dissimilar 
> hardware in the same manner before, and found that there was special 
> handling of various hardware dependent config files, so that I didn't 
> get set-up  for the "wrong" type.
> 
> - Toralf
> 
> > 
> >   Rsync should be much
> > faster for data transfer.
> > 
> > Best regards,
> >   - Markus
> > On Fr, 2018-04-13 at 14:46 +0200, Toralf Lund wrote:
> > > 
> > > 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
> > >      (https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.clonezilla.o
> > > rg&d=DwIGaQ&c=KV_I7O14pmwRcmAVyJ1eg4Jwb8Y2JAxuL5YgMGHpjcQ&r=Q0oqxzgUp3xCCI
> > > iJDwS-RbNDndQ-KZDhj8wwveNoqU4&m=LuCuhEh29vlP9l-
> > > Vakjf6lKeZVlmfp_AaqPakYDOV1c&s=7DzBbYmBU7fUsxgvVL-
> > > 59HG_y2uuwR1jxcbXX5skfGM&e= )
> > >   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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