On 01/29/2013 02:37 PM, Konstantin Olchanski wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 07:48:56AM -0800, Yasha Karant wrote:
>> We have a limited, small, number of IEEE 802.3 connected hardware
>> platform identical workstations to clone -- no 802.11 nor any shared
>> (remote, distributed) disk storage (at this time).  My plan was to
>> get one fully operational and configured, and then clone the hard
>> drive image onto the remaining machines one hard drive at a time.
>>
>
>
> I clone SL systems using both methods - "dd" (mdadm raid1, actually) and "rsync".
>
> The down side of cloning with "dd" is that all UUIDs become cloned (root filesystem, etc)
> and that can cause some confusion.
>
> The down side of cloning with "rsync" is that things like "persistent ethX naming"
> become confused (but no more than if you replace the mobo) and you end up with eth8
> and eth9 instead of eth0 and eth1, and other similar artefacts.
>
> When cloning using "rsync", you have to "make the target disk bootable", which
> requires resetting all the UUID strings in the bootloader and in /etc/fstab,
> a major hassle.
>
> Overall, it is faster to create new boot disks by cloning than by doing
> a fresh installation - because of all the required post-installation stuff
> that has to be done manually.
>
> My general SL post-installation instructions are here:
> https://www.triumf.info/wiki/DAQwiki/index.php/SLinstall
>
> Cloning using mdadm raid1:
> https://www.triumf.info/wiki/DAQwiki/index.php/Cloning_raid1_boot_disks
>
> Cloning using rsync manually:
> https://www.triumf.info/wiki/DAQwiki/index.php/VME-CPU#Clone_disk_manually
>
> Cloning using rsync using a script:
> https://www.triumf.info/wiki/DAQwiki/index.php/DEAP#64GB_SSD_boot_disks
>
> To defeat the "persistent naming of ethX" "helpful" "helpers":
> https://www.triumf.info/wiki/DAQwiki/index.php/SLinstall#Configure_network
>
>

Thank you for the above suggestions -- your methodology is isomorphic to 
my own.  One of my students who works professionally as a systems 
administrator has his own (personal, but work used) portable cloning 
station that accepts two (identical) SATA hard drives and copies 
(clones) one onto the other -- he has loaned me his unit.  He claims 
that it does a 1 TByte drive in well "under an hour" and requires no 
computer (other than the built-in processor and software, assuming the 
unit uses more than a FPGA or ASIC).  I am going to test this method -- 
and after each clone is made, plug the clone into an external eSATA 
drive adapter, mount the appropriate partition onto a temporary mount 
point (empty directory), and modify the hostname, IP address, and 
related files (e.g., /etc/hosts and other appropriate files) so that 
each "clone" will be for a different static IP and DNS named (not DHCP 
provisioned) machine.  If this indeed works, it promises to be the 
fastest method.  I know that such hardware is used commercially for this 
purpose -- but the box in question currently is available new for less 
than $100, not the greater than $1000 I have seen for "commercial" grade 
cloning hardware.  If it does work, I am going to get one and will post 
back to this list the specifics (or does it violate list rules to 
mention a particular brand of hardware for a specialized purpose?).

Yasha Karant