Re: [gentoo-user] Clone a running gentoo machine onto another machine

["Dan Cowsill" <danthehat@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 4:05 PM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sun, 30 Mar 2008 15:48:54 -0400, Hal Martin wrote:
>
>  > You cannot use tar unless you create an exclude file, as it will copy
>  > the contents of /dev and /sys, which means the entire contents of RAM,
>  > and anything that is currently being generated by your devices will be
>  > copied as well.
>  >
>  > Personally, I would use either tar or rsync to do this, however, in
>  > saying that, I have never actually done this with a live system. This is
>  > the tar command I use for copying inactive systems, and it works quite
>  > well.
>  >
>  > (cd /mnt/source; tar cfpl - .) | (cd /mnt/dest; tar xfp -)
>  >
>  > I assume you could just generate an exclude file, and include that in
>  > the first command
>
>  You don't need an exclude file to avoid /dev and /sys because they are on
>  separate filesystems, so  your use of -l takes care of this.
>
>  Rsync may work, or it may complain that files have changed between
>  building the list and copying them and you'd need to use -x to do the
>  same as -l with tar. Either way, shut down as many services as possible
>  during the copy, particularly anything that uses databases.
>
>
>  --
>  Neil Bothwick
>
>  If you got the words it does not mean you got the knowledge.
>

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I had read that if you don't copy
the files in /dev, udev won't mount properly on the machine you're
cloning to and all hell will break lose.  Also, iirc, I believe I
tarred a running machine (including /dev, excluding /sys) and the
clone was successful.

Any thoughts?

-- 
Dan Cowsill
http://www.danthehat.net
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