http://www.rajeevnet.com/hacks_hints/os_clone/os_cloning.html gives a detailed account of how to do this. This is 'dd' over a network, so assume identical disk drives and partitions. Also assume disk space is cheap. Markus Klimke wrote:
Ricardo Kleemann wrote:
Hi,
I have one server where I've installed SUSE 9.0 and a number of other things. How can I duplicate this installation to another server?
Is there a way to boot from CD and then copy the installation over the network?
Thanks Ricardo
You can make a copy creating a bzip'ed tar archive omitting the /proc, /dev (if you are using devfs, otherwise include it), /sys (if you are using a 2.6. kernel) and mounted filesystems like cdroms a/o nfs stuff. Make a copy of your partition table with sfdisk, and write this back to your slave server. If not, be sure that your root partition has the appropriate size to fit the backup. If you aren't mounting /boot at startup, don't forget to mount it before creating a backup. Do this backup onto another partition than your root one on master side. If this is done, you can copy this archive over the network to your destination, or fetch it with a boot disk from master onto the slave. Before fetching your backup create the partitions and format them. After this you only have to untar/unbzip it onto the root partition. LILO or grub your installation, reboot the machine. That's it.
Such backups are huge in size, so use bzip2 to compress your backup.
Other related methods are doing this with dd or partimage, where the whole drive or partition information will be stored, i.e.: Your backup has the same size as your partition or drive. I won't recommend that.
Regards Markus