Linux cloning tools

Could you please advice how to clone CentOS with all installed software to another box.

What tools should be used?

Max

Posted 2010-12-21T17:15:33.083

Reputation: 11

Is the hardware identical, or different? If so, how different is it? – Zoot – 2010-12-21T17:54:51.493

Which release of CentOS do you want to clone? – kamae – 2012-02-28T08:30:30.130

Answers

Couldn't you just clone the hard drive using a dd command and stick it into a new box? Here is more on using dd: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DriveImaging

Andrew Stern

Posted 2010-12-21T17:15:33.083

Reputation: 151

1+1 for not mentioning things like clonezilla or others when dd is perfectly capable! – g19fanatic – 2010-12-21T18:18:33.747

I've used PartImage for things like that.

Boycott SE for Monica Cellio

Posted 2010-12-21T17:15:33.083

Reputation: 678

While dd / ddrescue are great, it's a bit overkill if you have a huge drive and only a small part of it is used, how about just using tar? of course you will need to setup the bootloader by hand but that should be trivial.

Also check the CentOS Migration Guide.

OneOfOne

Posted 2010-12-21T17:15:33.083

Reputation: 889

1well there is a solution to this issue using dd as well. do a dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/drive/zero.img;rm /path/to/drive/zero.img Then when you're using dd to backup the drive, pipe it through gzip this will basically 'eliminate' all of the empty space as well as do great compression. This has the added benefit of cloning the whole HD and not needing to 'install' anything as well as using the smallest amount of space (for dd) possible. – g19fanatic – 2010-12-21T20:41:33.280

The command tar will ignore hard-link. rsync is better. – kamae – 2012-02-28T08:29:29.257