2011/8/14 Marek Andreánsky <[log in to unmask]>:
> I have a single running server that I can't meddle with and another older
> machine, that can be used for testing purposes.
> If I install SL 6.1 on my testing machine and configure services that I want
> to use on it, will it be portable and work when I move the disk and boot
> from it on my server?

THis is basically the same problem as using a backup of one machine to
run on another machine. There are potential issues: The biggest one is
that the drivers for the disk controllers for the new "target" machine
need to be available in the "initrd" file on the old "source" machine
or its backup. Anything else can be managed by someone at the console
after the system boots successfully. You can do that in advance by
looking at the "target" machine's

The relevant controller drivers, especially for SCSI controllers, used
to be in /etc/modprobe.conf, but that changed with the 6.x releases,
and I've not poked the new modprobe structure.

> I won't do any customization to the x-server and I'll use the default
> drivers that are in the Linux kernel.

> The only problem I'm thinking about is when I set up and configure Bind and
> meddle with the network settings - don't know how the network interfaces are
> loaded or stored on Linux - will the new network card be added as another
> interface to the old one or will it use the old interface configuration? Or
> will it purge the old network settings altogether when it detects that the
> device is no longer present and another one is in it's place?

SL 5 and its like used to leave the old
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/iccfg-* files in place, with the wrong
MAC addresses, which simply needed to be corrected and the network
restarted. SL 6 is using this "UUID" setting to identify particular
devices consistently, which I've not personally played with. You may
need to reset those manually with the "system-config-network" tool, if
this is just a one-off job,

> Has anyone tried doing this? I know that in theory it should work, but don't
> want to fly into this blind.

I've done something like it, using a backup based installation,
on...... roughly 15,000 servers with different, older Red Hat
releases. I've not done it under SL 6, which has re-arranged the
module loading and network configuration tools for boot time somewhat.

> Cheers and thanks for any input,
> Marek