If you are going to use rsynce consider that you may want to use some
additional options to make the copy more faithful to the original...
rsync -a -H -A -X -S /from/ /to/
See the man page.
Before going to 12.1 I used rsync to duplicate / to a spare partition
(I always leave make two OS partitions on every drive - can't have too
many now that disk is cheap). I then manually edited /etc/fstab
/boot/grub/menu.1st to make sure it would boot, that way I could
boot the upgraded 12.1 or the old 11.4. Note this was in addition to
offline backups (also using rsync). If you brought a machine down
to runlevel 1 it would be reasonably safe to just rsync the live machine.
On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:01:07 Carl Hartung wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:07:58 -0800
> Steven Hess <flamebait(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I am getting ready to do a zypper dup to 12.1 from 11.4 on my main
> > desktop system.
> > I would like to clone my current / drive to a back up disk (attached
> > via USB). I have used pmagic for this in the past. Is it possible to
> > do this from within the openSUSE 11.4 KDE environment?
> >
> > Thanks
> > Steven
>
> Hi Steven,
>
> This is exactly what I did before upgrading my system to 12.1. Good
> thing in my case because I just couldn't adapt to GNOME 3. After about
> a week I reverted back to my 11.4 installation using this method. I also
> used this method to store the 12.1 installation on another drive to try
> again later, after more updates have been released.
>
> Notes: This procedure assumes you've got '/' and '/home' on separate
> partitions and that the source and target partitions are properly
> created and formatted. Of course, you'll want to verify and/or modify
> device paths and numbering to match your environment.
>
> The basic procedure I follow is this:
>
> Boot into rescue mode using the 11.4 installation DVD (login
> as 'root'; does not require a password.)
>
> Plug in your external usb drive and wait a few seconds for it to power
> up and 'settle.'
>
> cd /mnt
> mkdir sda1 sda2 sdb1 sdb2
> mount /dev/sda1 sda1
> mount /dev/sda2 sda2
> mount /dev/sdb1 sdb1
> mount /dev/sdb2 sdb2
> mount (review and ensure everything is mounted as expected)
> rsync -av --delete sda1/ sdb1
> rsync -av --delete sda2/ sdb2
> umount
> reboot
>
> Unplug the external drive when the system is 'down,' before it boots
> again. Replace the 11.4 installation DVD with your 12.1 media and
> install. You should install without touching the existing bootloader in
> case, like me, you decide to revert back.
>
> The procedure I've outlined above creates proper 'mirrors' of the two
> partitions, keeping timestamps and permissions intact. A side benefit
> is each file is written in one pass, which eliminates a lot of
> fragmentation. You can drop the '--delete' flag if you know for a fact
> that your target partition(s) are empty. Finally, with rsync, the
> trailing '/' in the source path is important. It tells the program
> 'copy everything *under* the specified directory without recreating the
> directory, itself, on the target.'
>
> hth & regards,
>
> Carl
>
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