Three Identical systems - short cut to setting up the drives?
 

I am building three identical systems. Well they will have different
host names, and with time the software setups will drift. But at
install time they are identical.


Is there some way, (with dd I might guess) to do a hardare level copy?

All three drives are Hitachi DK23DA-40F (40Gb). Supposedly factory
reconditioned (they are in sealed bags with a drive sticker stating:
"Refurbished to Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Specifications").


I would want to copy the paritition table and my 3 partitions (/boot,
swap, LVM (/ and /home ext3 partitions in the LVM)) and all their contents.


Thing is I only have one USB drive enclosure so I would be running from
the drive I want to copy from.


I would hope this is faster than 2 more installs.


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Three Identical systems - short cut to setting up the drives?
 

On Thursday July 3 2008, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
> I am building three identical systems. Well they will have different
> host names, and with time the software setups will drift. But at
> install time they are identical.
>
> Is there some way, (with dd I might guess) to do a hardare level copy?
>
> All three drives are Hitachi DK23DA-40F (40Gb). Supposedly factory
> reconditioned (they are in sealed bags with a drive sticker stating:
> "Refurbished to Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Specifications").
>
> I would want to copy the paritition table and my 3 partitions (/boot,
> swap, LVM (/ and /home ext3 partitions in the LVM)) and all their contents.
>
> Thing is I only have one USB drive enclosure so I would be running from
> the drive I want to copy from.
>
> I would hope this is faster than 2 more installs.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS@centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos

Kickstart the system 2 & 3 after the install on #1
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Three Identical systems - short cut to setting up the drives?
 

Robert Moskowitz wrote:
I am building three identical systems. Well they will have different
host names, and with time the software setups will drift. But at
install time they are identical.


Is there some way, (with dd I might guess) to do a hardare level copy?

All three drives are Hitachi DK23DA-40F (40Gb). Supposedly factory
reconditioned (they are in sealed bags with a drive sticker stating:
"Refurbished to Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Specifications").


I would want to copy the paritition table and my 3 partitions (/boot,
swap, LVM (/ and /home ext3 partitions in the LVM)) and all their contents.


Thing is I only have one USB drive enclosure so I would be running from
the drive I want to copy from.


Boot from the install CD with 'linux rescue' at the boot prompt so you
can do the dd copy with none of the partitions mounted.


--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@gmail.com


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Three Identical systems - short cut to setting up the drives?
 

On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 21:11 -0400, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
> <snip>

> Is there some way, (with dd I might guess) to do a hardare level copy?

I've seen many posts on this list that recommend Clonezilla for this
sort of thing. You run off CD and it is said to be faster than DD
because it is hardware aware (forgive the alliteration) and so only
copies actual data.

I've not had occassion to use it though.

> <snip>

> I would want to copy the paritition table and my 3 partitions (/boot,
> swap, LVM (/ and /home ext3 partitions in the LVM)) and all their contents.
>
> Thing is I only have one USB drive enclosure so I would be running from
> the drive I want to copy from.
>
> I would hope this is faster than 2 more installs.
> <snip sig stuff>

HTH
--
Bill

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Three Identical systems - short cut to setting up the drives?
 

On Fri, 2008-07-04 at 05:22 -0400, William L. Maltby wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 21:11 -0400, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
> > <snip>
>
> ><snip>

> because it is hardware aware (forgive the alliteration) and so only

s/hardware/file system/ # I *knew* I needed coffee first.

> copies actual data.
> <snip>

--
Bill

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Three Identical systems - short cut to setting up the drives?
 

William L. Maltby wrote:

On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 21:11 -0400, Robert Moskowitz wrote:


<snip>





Is there some way, (with dd I might guess) to do a hardare level copy?



I've seen many posts on this list that recommend Clonezilla for this
sort of thing. You run off CD and it is said to be faster than DD
because it is hardware aware (forgive the alliteration) and so only
copies actual data.



Now this sounds of real interest. Off to google Clonezilla. Thanks.


I've not had occassion to use it though.



<snip>




I would want to copy the paritition table and my 3 partitions (/boot,
swap, LVM (/ and /home ext3 partitions in the LVM)) and all their contents.


Thing is I only have one USB drive enclosure so I would be running from
the drive I want to copy from.


I would hope this is faster than 2 more installs.
<snip sig stuff>



HTH


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Three Identical systems - short cut to setting up the drives?
 

Robert Moskowitz wrote:

I am building three identical systems. Well they will have different
host names, and with time the software setups will drift. But at install
time they are identical.

..snip...

I would hope this is faster than 2 more installs.


its not

do the install over the network from a http server, given the same
network, it would be many times faster to do the 2nd and 3rd install
using the ks.cfg generated from the 1st one ( as Terry Polzin already
pointed out ).


It will be many times faster than doing DD images of entire drives. eg.
in my case here, i can provision a new machine in 2 min and 43 seconds
for a base+core minimal centos-5 install. installing over http from a
machine on a GiB/sec link and installing to a 2 disk raid-1


- KB

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Three Identical systems - short cut to setting up the drives?
 

Karanbir Singh wrote:

Robert Moskowitz wrote:

I am building three identical systems. Well they will have different
host names, and with time the software setups will drift. But at install
time they are identical.

..snip...

I would hope this is faster than 2 more installs.


its not

do the install over the network from a http server, given the same
network, it would be many times faster to do the 2nd and 3rd install
using the ks.cfg generated from the 1st one ( as Terry Polzin already
pointed out ).


It will be many times faster than doing DD images of entire drives.
eg. in my case here, i can provision a new machine in 2 min and 43
seconds for a base+core minimal centos-5 install. installing over http
from a machine on a GiB/sec link and installing to a 2 disk raid-1
There is much good to say about using kickstart method than learning a
new approach like Clonezilla. I have not used kickstart since Centos
4.something, so I have no good notes and will have to dig again. But
this is pretty much a one-time clone and Clonezilla does not seem to set
up the partitioning info on the new drive so that would be one more
thing to learn.


So I take the anaconda-ks.cfg file, add stuff so it will boot off the
network and use the update repo as well as the base. Then rediscover the
command to run linux from a kickstart file on a diskette.


Piece of CAKE!

:)


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Three Identical systems - short cut to setting up the drives?
 

Karanbir Singh wrote:

Robert Moskowitz wrote:

I am building three identical systems. Well they will have different
host names, and with time the software setups will drift. But at install
time they are identical.

..snip...

I would hope this is faster than 2 more installs.


its not

do the install over the network from a http server, given the same
network, it would be many times faster to do the 2nd and 3rd install
using the ks.cfg generated from the 1st one ( as Terry Polzin already
pointed out ).


It will be many times faster than doing DD images of entire drives. eg.
in my case here, i can provision a new machine in 2 min and 43 seconds
for a base+core minimal centos-5 install. installing over http from a
machine on a GiB/sec link and installing to a 2 disk raid-1


Yes, dd is actually pretty slow in wall clock time. Where it wins is in
human time since you just type a short command line and go away, and it
duplicates any setup work you've done in addition too installing the
packages.


--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@gmail.com
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Three Identical systems - short cut to setting up the drives?
 

Robert Moskowitz wrote:


Is there some way, (with dd I might guess) to do a hardare level copy?



I've seen many posts on this list that recommend Clonezilla for this
sort of thing. You run off CD and it is said to be faster than DD
because it is hardware aware (forgive the alliteration) and so only
copies actual data.



Now this sounds of real interest. Off to google Clonezilla. Thanks.



Clonezilla-live is the one you want. It is a bootable iso and if you
have a place on the network to hold the image you won't have to get the
drives connected to the same machine.


--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@gmail.com

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