Re: clone a drive, no raid involved
On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 1:08 PM, Brad Mettee [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm setting up a pair of machines with almost identical OS config, and completely identical hardware. One is a primary DNS server, the other is secondary. NS1 will also serve web, NS2 will be a mail server. Both are low volume/loads. It looks like I can use DD to copy an entire drive, but it's a 500G drive and that's going to take a really long time (especially since it's brand new with no data besides base OS). My question: Is there a better way to duplicate a drive including boot info? You've got lots of useful answers on duplicating the system other ways, but I thought I'd mention that dd's performance can be enhanced by providing a blocksize. You might want to time some reads and writes with a set of numbers that divides evenly into the byte count of your disk. Years ago I found I could write a 40 GB laptop (4200RPM) disk in 21 minutes rather than one hour. --Donald ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
clone a drive, no raid involved
I'm setting up a pair of machines with almost identical OS config, and completely identical hardware. One is a primary DNS server, the other is secondary. NS1 will also serve web, NS2 will be a mail server. Both are low volume/loads. It looks like I can use DD to copy an entire drive, but it's a 500G drive and that's going to take a really long time (especially since it's brand new with no data besides base OS). My question: Is there a better way to duplicate a drive including boot info? Brad Mettee PC HotShots, Inc. Baltimore, MD (410) 426-7617 - Let us bring out the *Power* of your PCs. - - Custom Business Software Solutions since 1991 - visit http://www.pchotshots.com for information about our company. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clone a drive, no raid involved
that's going to take a really long time (especially since it's brand new with no data besides base OS). My question: Is there a better way to duplicate a drive including boot info? make same partitions, same newfs, copy files and then bsdlabel -B disk Brad Mettee PC HotShots, Inc. Baltimore, MD (410) 426-7617 - Let us bring out the *Power* of your PCs. - - Custom Business Software Solutions since 1991 - visit http://www.pchotshots.com for information about our company. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clone a drive, no raid involved
On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 12:08:34PM -0400, Brad Mettee wrote: I'm setting up a pair of machines with almost identical OS config, and completely identical hardware. One is a primary DNS server, the other is secondary. NS1 will also serve web, NS2 will be a mail server. Both are low volume/loads. It looks like I can use DD to copy an entire drive, but it's a 500G drive and that's going to take a really long time (especially since it's brand new with no data besides base OS). Yes dd(1) works, especially if the 2nd drive is equal size or larger than the original. My question: Is there a better way to duplicate a drive including boot info? Mount both drives on same machine, right? Then move one to the other? I think you will find its not all that hard to build the 2nd machine from install CDs. But it is a useful learning exercise to learn how to clone a drive before all hell breaks loose and the whole world is depending on you. Study the man page for bsdlabel(8) and reproduce the configuration on your 2nd drive that you see on your first. Write the new filesystems with newfs(8). Then for each filesystem (only showing / below): mount /dev/your-2nd-drive's-root /mnt dump -0aL -f - / | ( cd /mnt/ ; restore -r ) -- David Kelly N4HHE, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clone a drive, no raid involved
On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 12:08:34PM -0400, Brad Mettee wrote: I'm setting up a pair of machines with almost identical OS config, and completely identical hardware. One is a primary DNS server, the other is secondary. NS1 will also serve web, NS2 will be a mail server. Both are low volume/loads. It looks like I can use DD to copy an entire drive, but it's a 500G drive and that's going to take a really long time (especially since it's brand new with no data besides base OS). My question: Is there a better way to duplicate a drive including boot info? Really, the better way is to use fdisk/bsdlabel/newfs to create the identical file systems and boot/label blocks. Then use dump(8) piped to restore(8) to populate them with the data from the old file systems. It is generally better than making a byte-by-byte copy with dd unless you are experimenting with some oddities of unformatted disk access or whatever. Also, using dump/restore will allow for those small differences from disk to disk that are usually there without causing the problems dd copies of whole disks can have. jerry Brad Mettee PC HotShots, Inc. Baltimore, MD (410) 426-7617 - Let us bring out the *Power* of your PCs. - - Custom Business Software Solutions since 1991 - visit http://www.pchotshots.com for information about our company. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clone a drive, no raid involved
Brad Mettee wrote: I'm setting up a pair of machines with almost identical OS config, and completely identical hardware. One is a primary DNS server, the other is secondary. NS1 will also serve web, NS2 will be a mail server. Both are low volume/loads. It looks like I can use DD to copy an entire drive, but it's a 500G drive and that's going to take a really long time (especially since it's brand new with no data besides base OS). My question: Is there a better way to duplicate a drive including boot info? Partition second drive (I usually prefer sysinstall which also installs loaders), mount it and use dump/restore: cd /mnt dump -aLf - -C32 / | restore -rf - -- Alexander Motin ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: clone a drive, no raid involved
On Thu, 19 Jun 2008, Brad Mettee wrote: I'm setting up a pair of machines with almost identical OS config, and completely identical hardware. One is a primary DNS server, the other is secondary. NS1 will also serve web, NS2 will be a mail server. Both are low volume/loads. It looks like I can use DD to copy an entire drive, but it's a 500G drive and that's going to take a really long time (especially since it's brand new with no data besides base OS). My question: Is there a better way to duplicate a drive including boot info? The way I've done that in the past is to backup the source system with dump for /, /var, and /usr. Then do a minimal install on the clone, setting up the appropriate partition sizes. That is quicker for me than trying to remember fdisk and bsdlabel options. It also avoids the embarrassing situation of getting source and destination disks mixed up when they're both on the same machine. On the clone, restore from the original dump files over the new system with restore -ruf dumpfile. This may be helpful: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/disks.html#NEW-HUGE-DISK -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
