On 01/29/2013 09:56 AM, Steve Gaarder wrote:
> I've done cloning for many years with tar:
>
> On the source machine, boot from an SL live CD and mount the source's
> root file system. Make a tar file of this system with a command like:
>
> cd /mnt/wherever
> tar -cSf - . | ssh someuser@somewhere 'cat >mysystem.tar'
>
> Then, on the target, boot the live CD, partition the disk, create the
> root filesystem and mount it. THen untar the contents with something like:
>
> cd /mnt/wherever
> ssh someuser@somewhere cat mysystem.tar | tar -xpSf -
>
> You may need to change /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/grub.conf, if the
> partition layout is different or the files use UUIDs. In the latter
> case, I just change to partition names (e.g./dev/sda1).
>
> Then run grub to install the boot loader:
>
> grub
> root (hd0,X)
> setup (hd0)
>
> This works great as long as the hardware is similar enough that the
> initrd/initramfs still works. Otherwise, there's an extra step to
> regenerate it, which I can explain if people want.
>
> Steve Gaarder
> System Administrator, Dept of Mathematics
> Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
> [log in to unmask]
>
> On Tue, 29 Jan 2013, 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.
>>
>> Let A represent the operational (clone source) machine, and Bhd a
>> target hard drive. The hard drive on A is /dev/sda, call it Ahd. A is
>> shut down power off. Bhd is installed into an available bay on A, A is
>> booted, and Bhd appears as /dev/sdb in A. Using dd on A, clone
>> /dev/sda to /dev/sdb . Mount on A the partition of /dev/sdb that
>> contains /etc (there are no end user home directories -- only home
>> directories are those of the system administration users). Using a
>> text editor (e.g., vi), modify the /etc/sysconfig/net*
>> scripts/directories, as well as /etc/hosts. for the name and IP
>> address of machine B that will contain Bhd (resolv.conf will be the
>> same -- all of these machines are in the same DNS subzone, same TCP/IP
>> subnet). Iterate through all of the target workstation hard drives. As
>> there are no other distributed services running, this should suffice.
>>
>> Shutdown A, remove Bhd, install Bhd into B, boot B upon which Bhd
>> should appear as /dev/sda . Done.
>>
>> Is there a better method in terms of software? At this time, I do not
>> want to setup a remote image server that effectively will download the
>> full image of Ahd onto Bhd over a network, nor do I want to make a
>> custom install DVD as we only have a small number of workstations to
>> clone, not, say, one hundred.
>>
>> I do understand that if Ahd and Bhd present different bad blocks to
>> the OS, and these are not "hidden" by the intelligence on each
>> individual hard drive, then dd may not work. However, the drives
>> already have been surveyed and the bad block situation should not be
>> an issue.
>>
>> A related question (that was partially addressed in a different
>> thread): is there a way to remove/disable Network Manager and use a
>> traditional static configuration? On a laptop that needs to move
>> within the field from one 802.11 network to another, with a different
>> DNS zone and TCP/IP configuration, Network Manager provides similar
>> ease and functionality to the end user autoconfiguration applications
>> that are used under Mac OS X or modern MS Win. This is unnecessary and
>> in some sense dangerous for static workstations that need no such
>> dynamic configuration.
>>
>> My thought was to find the RPM that installs Network Manager and
>> simply uninstall it, either via yum or a simple rpm -e command. Is
>> Network Manager too deeply ingrained in current EL6 (using TUV
>> compliant model) to make this feasible?
>>
>> Yasha Karant
>>

You can use g4u (Ghost for Unix) or g4l (Ghost for Linux) to image and 
back up disks over the network.  Usually using FTP.  There are other 
fancier utilities such as Clonezilla that may also work well.  Most have 
bootable media to get it on the network and a few clicks/commands to get 
the disks cloning.

-Mark

-- 
Mr. Mark V. Stodola
Senior Control Systems Engineer

National Electrostatics Corp.
P.O. Box 620310
Middleton, WI 53562-0310 USA
Phone: (608) 831-7600
Fax: (608) 831-9591