neat Linux HDD cloning technique (for production)

To make sure that the disk is clean we use PXE to boot the target machine from the network. We boot in a Linux partition in memory. Then we use Samba to write the partition to a remote machine (Linux needs to have samba support).

dd if=/dev/hda | gzip -c -9 > /remote/somefilename

We do the 'opposite' for writing the image.

You may run into limitations with the file size. This depends on how full the partition is, you may be able to fit 60GB in 2GB file. You are looking at 30 min transfers with 100MBPS LAN.

Good luck,

Marius

Odd that you'd say that. Recent versions of Ghost understand ext2 and therefore can copy just the data, so they clone a lot faster than dd if your disk isn't full.

The only problems we've had with Ghost are that older versions would cause problems with ext3 (fixed in 2003 version), and it will roach some boot loaders. The latter problem is easily fixed by making a boot disk for your system ahead of time, then booting up and reestablishing the boot loader.

Nobody owns that domain. I tried g4x.com, but that's held by a domain name squatter, and g4x.net isn't owned by anyone.

I seem to recall that some of the Linux clustering vendors have built such things, so they can reload cluster nodes from a standard image from a central location.

Probably dedicated disk cloning hardware. Basically an embedded dd box. There are several of these on the market. The more common ones will clone to four disks simultaneously.

They supposedly buy the disks preprogrammed from the manufacturer. E.g. Seagate sells disk preprogrammed with Lindows at no additional cost to PC venders.

- Michael