[CentOS] How to dump/restore a CentOS 7 system

[Ron Loftin]

On Wed, 2019-09-25 at 11:46 -0500, Valeri Galtsev wrote:
> 
> On 2019-09-25 11:31, Xinhuan Zheng wrote:
> > 
> > Hello All,
> > 
> > I guess it is very common for administrative purpose, to dump and
> > restore a CentOS 7 system.
> Though I can not answer OP's question, I have question of my own.
> 
> Is this really routine (often) task for Linux sysadmins? I used 
> something like that to replicate cluster nodes in the past, but 
> kickstart would be routine task for me. dump/restore sounds like
> routine 
> from MS Windows world (I hear they "re-image" system if something
> goes 
> wrong ;-)
> 
> Am I wrong? Do we in Linux world do this routinely?
> 

You are not wrong.  However, I will point out first that dump and
restore are utilities that have been around the Unix/Linux world for a
very long time, rather than something from the M$ world.

The issue of how to restore/copy a system installation is open to
discussion these days.  I have recently been in a situation where
duplicating identical machines is done conveniently with dump and
restore.  I have also been in situations where installing or
reinstalling a system of slightly different configuration is easily
accomplished via kickstart.

It mostly depends on the situation to be addressed at the moment, and
the tools available.  For instance, to perform a one-time installation
when you do not have kickstart set up on your network is a significant
amount of work, and may not be worth the effort of kickstart set-up.

This is one of the benefits of decades of development.  More tools are
available to handle the installation requirements.

> Valeri
> 
> > 
> > I usually use dump/restore commands. However, I’m having trouble to
> > handle installing bootloader and creating initramfs for C7 system.
> > Does anyone know a good document source that details those
> > procedure?
> > Thank you,
> > 
> > Xinhuan Zheng
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> > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
> > 
-- 
Ron Loftin			reloftin at twcny.rr.com

"God, root, what is difference ?"	Piter from UserFriendly