-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Yeah, rsync -essh is way cool.
The only problems I can think of would arise if you had different hardware or different glibc on the different machines, so that executables wouldn't be. Also, probably you want /var in the exclude list. Maybe I'm just the nervous type, but I'd be worried about just copying over /lib/modules in this way, too. By the way, I have found unison (http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/) to be an extremely useful and easy-to-use file synchronizer and a good supplement to rsync. It supports ssh too. I use it for /home stuff, not anything above that. Aaron > First, let me rave about rsync. It is easy to use, very fast, and can > be used directly with ssh, another favorite tool of mine. I first > started to use it to back up my laptop's home directory onto a desktop, > like this: > > $rsync -vax -e ssh --exclude=mnt/ --exclude=some_file --delete-excluded > /home [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/path_to_backup_folder > > I put this one line in a script for ease of use. If many exclusions are > desired, a list can be put in a text file to be read by rsync. > > This week I got a wild idea to use rsync as a means of "installing" and > "updating" gentoo linux on computers with similar (but not identical) > hardware. I have 4 Pentium3 boxes that I use for engineering > simulations. I had installed gentoo linux on one computer a couple > months ago, but the others had RedHat 9. I love gentoo, but I didn't > want to spend hours converting them all if I could avoid it. So my idea > was to wipe redhat, re-partition the drive (if necessary), install the > _basic_ stage3 gentoo install using the "livecd", and rsync over > everything else from the computer with gentoo already installed. Here > is the rsync command I used: > > #rsync -va -e ssh --exclude-from=exclude_file --delete-after > [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/ / > > exclude_file > ------------ > dev/ > home/ > mnt/ > proc/ > root/ > sys/ > etc/fstab > etc/X11/XF86Config > etc/hostname > etc/hosts > etc/conf.d/net > boot/grub/grub.conf > > Since I have different video cards and different partition schemes, I > have to configure XF86Config, fstab, and grub.conf manually. But almost > everything else copies over and works automatically, such as firewall, > ntp, and logrotate settings. Now I just need to download and compile > updates for one computer, and then use the same rsync command to update > the other 3. > > So far, I have been successful with one computer and am waiting to see > if any bugs appear before doing the other 2. Any comments? Are there > any potential pitfalls to maintaining computers this way? > - -- Aaron A. King Ecology & Evolutionary Biology University of Tennessee http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~king GPG Public Key: 6ABA0716 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFAadYT9P08W2q6BxYRAlkzAJ9EgvwLS1VoQSHmcZoYtiI4C61CtwCfdikX e0bQqfBttJdEwyxfXWJJZyE= =PJom -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech
