On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 03:25:22AM -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote: > > into the final stages of my debian upgrade adventure, and here's the > final phase. at the moment, i have a couple more upgrade steps to get > the existing server (old dell P4 system) up to a fully-upgraded lenny > system, and make sure all the software still works properly (web > server, mail server, etc.). and this is on a system where there is a > single root filesystem (/dev/sda1), so it's a very simple partitioning > layout. > > once that upgrade is done, i want to pick up the entire install, and > move it to a new dual-drive poweredge server, obviously keeping > everything in place. but i want to format the new system with LVM and > multiple filesystems for robustness. so what's the best way to do > that? > > the obvious solution is to take the running server offline, reboot > to a rescue CD, and copy the entire rootfs verbatim to a backup > device, connect that backup device to the new server, and restore with > a directory-oriented restoration which will honour the new LVM layout. > but that suggests that the new server already has a debian install on > it, so that restoration will obviously end up writing over top of an > existing install. is that safe? > > i find it hard to believe that would work cleanly as the old log > files (dpkg, aptitude and so on) would overwrite the ones on the new > server, and i'm betting i'd end up with all sorts of inconsistencies. > the only way i can think of avoiding that kind of grief would be for > me to do the barest install on the new server, where the packages i > installed there would be an absolute subset of the ones on the old > server. or, better yet, just arrange for empty filesystems to be > sitting there, waiting to be filled. > > is there, perhaps, a utility for this sort of thing? after all, > this has to be a fairly common occurrence -- moving a working debian > system from an aging, old system to a newer one. thoughts? > If you end up doing a fresh install as somebody else suggested, you might consider running it in a virtual machine. It could be considered a waste of resources, but it should make it easier to migrate that fresh installation to new hardware in the future, since the virtual hardware will be unchanged.
-Rob -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
