I have some comments that go beyond this one-time operation and address the issue of creating hardware redundancy. Those comments are based on a tip Seth gave me about transplanting an entire installation. A) Change your machines to swappable HDs (for convenience and reducing down-time) B) tar up the individual partitions or directories (whatever makes sense and is allowed by free disk space); see(*) If the system is running /proc and /var may not like to be tar'ed. I used the -T option to define the directories I wanted to save/avoid. (if you have a CD burner those *.tgz also make a great backup on CD of the entire system) C) Go to a second machine and make a small (console-only) helper installation at the end of one of the swappable HDs; partition the rest (major) part of the HD to accept the original source installation. D) Use that helper installation to un-tar the various .tgz into the appropriate partitions (that way you preserve the file system-hardware relationship w/o having to change fstab ...) E) Create a lilo_transplant.conf that translates directory names to the temporary mount points within that helper installation, e.g. /boot may be called /mnt/hda1 , /home maybe /mnt/hda7 , etc. Use 'lilo -C lilo_transplant.conf' within the helper installation to write the MBR. F) Boot to the transplanted system and see if the new hardware needs minor configuration (my NICs did). Now you have a functioning duplicate of the original server. If you need redundancy for other servers just get one swappable HD for each, repeat those step above, and you can switch to any of the backup system in two minutes. (*) It may be wise separate more permanent data (the system files) from those that change all the time (e.g. /home) -- that way you can update your .tgz more easily and un-tar them onto those spare HDs. - Horst (I am on 'digest' - so this maybe outdated). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On Tue, 24 Jul 2001, Seth Cohn wrote: > 30 minutes? > > Don't even worry about bounces... the 4 hour rule > is fine. > > I'd make sure you have a good backup, in case of > unforseen problems. Something you can restore > from baremetal if need be. > > > > > --- Rob Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I have a server that I'd like to upgrade > > (hardware & OS), and want the > > downtime to be minimal. I'm going to > > unsubscribe from the various > > mailing lists I'm on so they don't get bounced > > with the message 'will > > try again every 4 hours'. I don't really have > > a server to take over > > in the interim. I project I'll be down maybe > > 30 minutes. > > > > Any advice? > > > > Thanks, > > Rob > > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger > http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ >
