[gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Benjamin Block]

Hej folks,

I wonder what is a good way to create an image of a gentoo-system, so
that one can apply it later to the same or other computers.

In my case it is a rather simple setup: one partition, no encryption or
lvm. Its a debug-setup, so its only used for certain programming-tasks
and not for daily work, so no need for something fancy. The time I setup
that system I also used only conservative compilation-flags and
optimisation, so that it can be used on other CPUs (well, they have to
be x86_64 and have to have mmx/sse[23] - but I think every setup that I
intend to use this on will have these properties).

So I reckon that one could just use tar with permission-preservation and
some excludes like dev/sys/proc/tmp. But is this a good idea or is there
a better way to do this? I never cloned a gentoo-system, so thats why I
would like to be at least somewhat sure about it, so that I don't have
to reconfigure it later again, because I messed it up :D

best regards,
- Ben

Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Mick]

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On Sunday 08 Sep 2013 19:51:25 Benjamin Block wrote:
> Hej folks,
> 
> I wonder what is a good way to create an image of a gentoo-system, so
> that one can apply it later to the same or other computers.
> 
> In my case it is a rather simple setup: one partition, no encryption or
> lvm. Its a debug-setup, so its only used for certain programming-tasks
> and not for daily work, so no need for something fancy. The time I setup
> that system I also used only conservative compilation-flags and
> optimisation, so that it can be used on other CPUs (well, they have to
> be x86_64 and have to have mmx/sse[23] - but I think every setup that I
> intend to use this on will have these properties).
> 
> So I reckon that one could just use tar with permission-preservation and
> some excludes like dev/sys/proc/tmp. But is this a good idea or is there
> a better way to do this? I never cloned a gentoo-system, so thats why I
> would like to be at least somewhat sure about it, so that I don't have
> to reconfigure it later again, because I messed it up :D
> 
> best regards,
> - Ben

You're referring to a 'stage 4' iso.  Have a look at this M/L perhaps 5 years 
back when I recall someone posting a thread about it.

There may also be a thread in the forums and potentially the (old) wiki.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Dale]

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Mick wrote:
> On Sunday 08 Sep 2013 19:51:25 Benjamin Block wrote:
>> Hej folks,
>>
>> I wonder what is a good way to create an image of a gentoo-system, so
>> that one can apply it later to the same or other computers.
>>
>> In my case it is a rather simple setup: one partition, no encryption or
>> lvm. Its a debug-setup, so its only used for certain programming-tasks
>> and not for daily work, so no need for something fancy. The time I setup
>> that system I also used only conservative compilation-flags and
>> optimisation, so that it can be used on other CPUs (well, they have to
>> be x86_64 and have to have mmx/sse[23] - but I think every setup that I
>> intend to use this on will have these properties).
>>
>> So I reckon that one could just use tar with permission-preservation and
>> some excludes like dev/sys/proc/tmp. But is this a good idea or is there
>> a better way to do this? I never cloned a gentoo-system, so thats why I
>> would like to be at least somewhat sure about it, so that I don't have
>> to reconfigure it later again, because I messed it up :D
>>
>> best regards,
>> - Ben
>
> You're referring to a 'stage 4' iso.  Have a look at this M/L perhaps
5 years
> back when I recall someone posting a thread about it.
>
> There may also be a thread in the forums and potentially the (old) wiki.
>

http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/HOWTO_Custom_Stage4

http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Backup

One of those should help.  If not, Google for "Gentoo starge4" without
the quotes of course.

Dale

:-)  :-)

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or
how you interpreted my words!


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Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Benjamin Block]

On 17:07 Sun 08 Sep     , Dale wrote:
> Mick wrote:
> > On Sunday 08 Sep 2013 19:51:25 Benjamin Block wrote:
> >> Hej folks,
> >>
> >> I wonder what is a good way to create an image of a gentoo-system, so
> >> that one can apply it later to the same or other computers.
> >>
> >> In my case it is a rather simple setup: one partition, no encryption or
> >> lvm. Its a debug-setup, so its only used for certain programming-tasks
> >> and not for daily work, so no need for something fancy. The time I setup
> >> that system I also used only conservative compilation-flags and
> >> optimisation, so that it can be used on other CPUs (well, they have to
> >> be x86_64 and have to have mmx/sse[23] - but I think every setup that I
> >> intend to use this on will have these properties).
> >>
> >> So I reckon that one could just use tar with permission-preservation and
> >> some excludes like dev/sys/proc/tmp. But is this a good idea or is there
> >> a better way to do this? I never cloned a gentoo-system, so thats why I
> >> would like to be at least somewhat sure about it, so that I don't have
> >> to reconfigure it later again, because I messed it up :D
> >>
> >> best regards,
> >> - Ben
> >
> > You're referring to a 'stage 4' iso.  Have a look at this M/L perhaps
> 5 years
> > back when I recall someone posting a thread about it.
> >
> > There may also be a thread in the forums and potentially the (old) wiki.
> >
> 
> http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/HOWTO_Custom_Stage4
> 
> http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Backup
> 
> One of those should help.  If not, Google for "Gentoo starge4" without
> the quotes of course.
> 

ok, thank you both for pointing out how this is called and the links.
Could have thought of "stage 4" myself, it's somewhat logic ;)


- Ben

Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Dale]

Benjamin Block wrote:
> On 17:07 Sun 08 Sep     , Dale wrote:
>>
>> http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/HOWTO_Custom_Stage4
>>
>> http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Backup
>>
>> One of those should help.  If not, Google for "Gentoo starge4" without
>> the quotes of course.
>>
> ok, thank you both for pointing out how this is called and the links.
> Could have thought of "stage 4" myself, it's somewhat logic ;)
>
>
> - Ben
>
>

Only once you know it.  I'm not going to tell how many times I have
posted a question because I don't know what to search for.  It happens
to us all.  Heck, just when I get used to something being called one
thing, they change the name to something else.  :/

Hope that gets you just what you want tho.  It should be a start at
least.  I saw lots of other hits on Google too. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words!

Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Michael Hampicke]

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Am 08.09.2013 20:51, schrieb Benjamin Block:
> Hej folks,
> 
> I wonder what is a good way to create an image of a gentoo-system, so
> that one can apply it later to the same or other computers.
> 
> In my case it is a rather simple setup: one partition, no encryption or
> lvm. Its a debug-setup, so its only used for certain programming-tasks
> and not for daily work, so no need for something fancy. The time I setup
> that system I also used only conservative compilation-flags and
> optimisation, so that it can be used on other CPUs (well, they have to
> be x86_64 and have to have mmx/sse[23] - but I think every setup that I
> intend to use this on will have these properties).
> 
> So I reckon that one could just use tar with permission-preservation and
> some excludes like dev/sys/proc/tmp. But is this a good idea or is there
> a better way to do this? I never cloned a gentoo-system, so thats why I
> would like to be at least somewhat sure about it, so that I don't have
> to reconfigure it later again, because I messed it up :D
> 

Tar with permission preservation is fine. Just exlude everything in
dev/sys/proc/tmp as you said. But make sure, that these directories are
in your tar file, it does not matter if they are empty, but they have to
exist in order to boot proplery.

One special case. To boot you most likely will need /dev/console and
/dev/null. Just inlcude those two device nodes in your tar file.

Optionally use compression (gz, bz2, xz, ...) on your tar to safe some
space.


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Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Benjamin Block]

On 08:30 Mon 09 Sep     , Michael Hampicke wrote:
> Am 08.09.2013 20:51, schrieb Benjamin Block:
> > Hej folks,
> > 
> > I wonder what is a good way to create an image of a gentoo-system, so
> > that one can apply it later to the same or other computers.
> > 
> > In my case it is a rather simple setup: one partition, no encryption or
> > lvm. Its a debug-setup, so its only used for certain programming-tasks
> > and not for daily work, so no need for something fancy. The time I setup
> > that system I also used only conservative compilation-flags and
> > optimisation, so that it can be used on other CPUs (well, they have to
> > be x86_64 and have to have mmx/sse[23] - but I think every setup that I
> > intend to use this on will have these properties).
> > 
> > So I reckon that one could just use tar with permission-preservation and
> > some excludes like dev/sys/proc/tmp. But is this a good idea or is there
> > a better way to do this? I never cloned a gentoo-system, so thats why I
> > would like to be at least somewhat sure about it, so that I don't have
> > to reconfigure it later again, because I messed it up :D
> > 
> 
> Tar with permission preservation is fine. Just exlude everything in
> dev/sys/proc/tmp as you said. But make sure, that these directories are
> in your tar file, it does not matter if they are empty, but they have to
> exist in order to boot proplery.
> 
> One special case. To boot you most likely will need /dev/console and
> /dev/null. Just inlcude those two device nodes in your tar file.
> 

Thanks for pointing that out, but why are these both special? Seems to
me like these are also (char)device-nodes and shouldn't they also be
generated by the kernel with DEVTMPFS and then udev at a very early
init-stage?

> Optionally use compression (gz, bz2, xz, ...) on your tar to safe some
> space.
> 


- Ben

Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Michael Hampicke]

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Am 09.09.2013 21:05, schrieb Benjamin Block:
> On 08:30 Mon 09 Sep     , Michael Hampicke wrote:
>> Am 08.09.2013 20:51, schrieb Benjamin Block:
>>> Hej folks,
>>>
>>> I wonder what is a good way to create an image of a gentoo-system, so
>>> that one can apply it later to the same or other computers.
>>>
>>> In my case it is a rather simple setup: one partition, no encryption or
>>> lvm. Its a debug-setup, so its only used for certain programming-tasks
>>> and not for daily work, so no need for something fancy. The time I setup
>>> that system I also used only conservative compilation-flags and
>>> optimisation, so that it can be used on other CPUs (well, they have to
>>> be x86_64 and have to have mmx/sse[23] - but I think every setup that I
>>> intend to use this on will have these properties).
>>>
>>> So I reckon that one could just use tar with permission-preservation and
>>> some excludes like dev/sys/proc/tmp. But is this a good idea or is there
>>> a better way to do this? I never cloned a gentoo-system, so thats why I
>>> would like to be at least somewhat sure about it, so that I don't have
>>> to reconfigure it later again, because I messed it up :D
>>>
>>
>> Tar with permission preservation is fine. Just exlude everything in
>> dev/sys/proc/tmp as you said. But make sure, that these directories are
>> in your tar file, it does not matter if they are empty, but they have to
>> exist in order to boot proplery.
>>
>> One special case. To boot you most likely will need /dev/console and
>> /dev/null. Just inlcude those two device nodes in your tar file.
>>
> 
> Thanks for pointing that out, but why are these both special? Seems to
> me like these are also (char)device-nodes and shouldn't they also be
> generated by the kernel with DEVTMPFS and then udev at a very early
> init-stage?

If you have DEVTMPFS enabled you should be fine. But not everybody has
that enabled, or even uses udev :-)


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Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Dale]

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Michael Hampicke wrote:
> Am 09.09.2013 21:05, schrieb Benjamin Block:
>> On 08:30 Mon 09 Sep     , Michael Hampicke wrote:
>>> Am 08.09.2013 20:51, schrieb Benjamin Block:
>>>> Hej folks,
>>>>
>>>> I wonder what is a good way to create an image of a gentoo-system, so
>>>> that one can apply it later to the same or other computers.
>>>>
>>>> In my case it is a rather simple setup: one partition, no encryption or
>>>> lvm. Its a debug-setup, so its only used for certain programming-tasks
>>>> and not for daily work, so no need for something fancy. The time I
setup
>>>> that system I also used only conservative compilation-flags and
>>>> optimisation, so that it can be used on other CPUs (well, they have to
>>>> be x86_64 and have to have mmx/sse[23] - but I think every setup that I
>>>> intend to use this on will have these properties).
>>>>
>>>> So I reckon that one could just use tar with
permission-preservation and
>>>> some excludes like dev/sys/proc/tmp. But is this a good idea or is
there
>>>> a better way to do this? I never cloned a gentoo-system, so thats why I
>>>> would like to be at least somewhat sure about it, so that I don't have
>>>> to reconfigure it later again, because I messed it up :D
>>>>
>>>
>>> Tar with permission preservation is fine. Just exlude everything in
>>> dev/sys/proc/tmp as you said. But make sure, that these directories are
>>> in your tar file, it does not matter if they are empty, but they have to
>>> exist in order to boot proplery.
>>>
>>> One special case. To boot you most likely will need /dev/console and
>>> /dev/null. Just inlcude those two device nodes in your tar file.
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for pointing that out, but why are these both special? Seems to
>> me like these are also (char)device-nodes and shouldn't they also be
>> generated by the kernel with DEVTMPFS and then udev at a very early
>> init-stage?
>
> If you have DEVTMPFS enabled you should be fine. But not everybody has
> that enabled, or even uses udev :-)
>

I would include them just in case.  Why take the chance that it fails
for whatever reason.

Dale

:-)  :-)

-- 
I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or
how you interpreted my words!


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Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 09 Sep 2013 08:30:24 +0200, Michael Hampicke wrote:

> Tar with permission preservation is fine. Just exlude everything in
> dev/sys/proc/tmp as you said. But make sure, that these directories are
> in your tar file, it does not matter if they are empty, but they have to
> exist in order to boot proplery.
> 
> One special case. To boot you most likely will need /dev/console and
> /dev/null. Just inlcude those two device nodes in your tar file.

Instead of all that, you could bind-mount / somewhere and just make a
tarball of that. That way you exclude any other filesystems (which can
also be done with --one-filesystem) and include any device nodes in the
underlying /dev directory.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a
warning to others.

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Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Stefan G. Weichinger]

Am 09.09.2013 08:30, schrieb Michael Hampicke:

> Tar with permission preservation is fine. Just exlude everything
> in dev/sys/proc/tmp as you said. But make sure, that these
> directories are in your tar file, it does not matter if they are
> empty, but they have to exist in order to boot proplery.

Sorry if I am maybe a bit OT (am I?):

I often cloned systems from or into VMs by booting both systems with
live-CDs, mounting their disks and "rsync -av" the root-fs over ...
sure, taking care of dev/sys/proc/tmp does not hurt ...

After the rsync maybe some fstab-editing, checking grub-config ... but
that worked several times already ... (OK, not automated ... but
sufficient if I prepare a server inside a VM and then apply that image
once).

S

Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[thegeezer]

On 09/11/2013 12:55 PM, Stefan G. Weichinger wrote:
> Am 09.09.2013 08:30, schrieb Michael Hampicke:
>
>> Tar with permission preservation is fine. Just exlude everything
>> in dev/sys/proc/tmp as you said. But make sure, that these
>> directories are in your tar file, it does not matter if they are
>> empty, but they have to exist in order to boot proplery.
> Sorry if I am maybe a bit OT (am I?):
>
> I often cloned systems from or into VMs by booting both systems with
> live-CDs, mounting their disks and "rsync -av" the root-fs over ...
> sure, taking care of dev/sys/proc/tmp does not hurt ...
>
> After the rsync maybe some fstab-editing, checking grub-config ... but
> that worked several times already ... (OK, not automated ... but
> sufficient if I prepare a server inside a VM and then apply that image
> once).
>
> S
>
>
personally i like to add the clone-to disk as a mirror into my lvm, then
once it is synced, i stop service such as databases, split the mirror
and then start databases again.
this lets me import the lvm to the new location practically identical,
of course fstab etc need changing at the other end