[gentoo-user] Duplicate Flash drive

[James <wireless@tampabay.rr.com>]

Hello,

Background:
I've been building firewall for friends out of old pentiums and
amd machines for some time now. I have successfully switch to
compact Flash 4 G drive, using a CF to ide converter.


Now I need to be able to store a generic install on a machine, plug
in a new CF module to a CF reader/writer and copy over the default install.
From there I can change IP, hostname etc etc.

I have several CF reader/writers  one should do the trick. 
I have a few questions; and I'm seeking advice on how to
scale this up, so new installs and replacing firewalls
hard drives is quick and easy. All will use an identical hard 
drive setup and file systems.


I guess I should use 'dd' to copy the entire contents
of one CF drive to another?  Any example syntax with dd
is welcome. 

Should I keep a machine around to run fdisk on a new CF 
module, or is there a way, I can just plug the CF module 
into a reader/writer and burn the image onto
the CF module directly, and not have to use fdisk to format
first?


What about grub and the mbr. Will dd copy over all of that information,
or do I have to run grub (grub install) manually to ensure the MBR
is set properly.


Any other comments, caveats or ideas are most welcome. The setup 
I'm using is as generic as possible so all old 586/pentium/k(amd) 
arch boxes work....


ideas and comments are welcome.


James