Mark Neidorff put forth on 12/2/2009 5:22 PM: > On Tuesday 01 December 2009 09:22 pm, Stan Hoeppner wrote: >> I currently have a 40GB IDE boot disk in a Lenny server. I boot with >> LILO, but not INITRD. I have the following partitions: >> >> I would like to add a new IDE disk between say 160GB and 250GB, on >> another IDE channel, and copy/mirror/etc the exact contents of the >> current system disk to the new disk; make the new disk the system (boot) >> disk, and remove the original disk from the machine. I've never done a >> disk migration such as this with Linux. >> >> This is a production email firewall/gateway. Thus, I need to have the >> system down as little as possible to complete this. I know I'll need to >> enter single user mode to do the work. I'm just not sure what work I >> need to do in order to properly accomplish this task. >> >> So, what's the best method to pull this off, guaranteeing (as best as >> possible) that all the data made it across the river intact, with an >> identical partition and directory structure, will identical permissions >> on all dirs and files, and that will be bootable? If I start up Postfix >> after the migration to the new disk, and the queue directory/file >> permissions are incorrect, my mail server would be dead in the water. > > There is no concise guide to doing what you want, because it is a complex job.
I guess I just figured someone had gone through the same process and documented it. > Do your users store e-mail on the server? That is an issue. No local mail storage, it's primarily a Postfix anti-spam gateway. I do some occasional ftp on if someone wants to send me an ISO (or a dozen) or what not. It also hosts some static content via lighttpd, but it's very little, stuff like log file summaries, some personal stuff, basically utility knife web hosting. > Do you have a second PC that you can use to install the software and test? That I do not have. > Suggestion: > Install mondorescue > stop the mail server > do a backup > restore to the new disk (on a different computer) > Install lilo > move the new disk to the server > start it up and see how it works. > > Mondorescue will take care of the bare metal restore and get you up and > running just fine. I'll look into Mondorescue. What is its preferred backup media? Only storage devices I have on the box are an HD and 3.5 floppy. I was really hoping I could just go disk-disk and be done with it, using something like ghost, or just mirroring the old disk, then breaking the mirror and run with the new disk. I used to do that alot back in my Winders days. I guess none of the Linux mirroring utilities will work for this since no one has suggested it? -- Stan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org