Topic: Can I clone a server??

[grattman]

Morning all,

Is it possible to clone (using program such as Norton Ghost) an SME install on a 3 year old sever onto a brand new server? I guess the reason I am asking is I do not know if SME/CentOS handles the hardware/drivers the same as Windoze does. I guess it can't hurt to try. I figured I would ask if anyone has don it as I have 1 day to move the server over to the new platform and I don't think that will be enough time.

Thanks,
grattman

[Stefano]

please, stay a mile away from ghost or similar products

if you want to clone a server you should:
- backup your server
- install sme on the other one
- restore your backup

if you are afraid about an highly personalized server (i.e. many rpms ecc) try Affa.. it has an utility to show which rpms you need..

HTH

Ciao
Stefano

[raem]

grattman

In most cases you can remove a disk from one server and install it in another server (with different hardware) and it will boot up OK. Linux will find the hardware & load appropriate drivers at boot up time.
This should be OK for Pentium to Pentium systems or AMD to AMD systems etc.

If necessary you can run the CD install (but select the upgrade option) to install new kernels etc for different processors, without losing existing data etc.

If you have  RAID1 system, you can pull out a drive and install it in the new server, and then increase the disk size using this method.
http://wiki.contribs.org/Raid
See Upgrading the Hard Drive Size

Note that if using clone software you need to ensure it supports RAID & lvm etc which many don't.

[grattman]

please, stay a mile away from ghost or similar products

Stefano,
I have had great success with Ghost in the Windoze arena. As for the backup/load/restore, there are large amounts of data in some of the ibays making the backup enormous. I guess I could migrate them temporarily somewhere else.

Ray,
That is what I had read here and there and thought, but I wanted to make sure. Unfortunately, the old server has SCSI drives and the new server has SATA drives, otherwise the drive swap would be ideal.

[Stefano]

Stefano,
I have had great success with Ghost in the Windoze arena.

yes, you said: "in the windoze arena"..

but AFAIK ghost and linux fs, sw raid and lvm is... a pain!

Unfortunately, the old server has SCSI drives and the new server has SATA drives, otherwise the drive swap would be ideal.

I repeat: Affa..

Ciao
Stefano

[CharlieBrady]

I guess the reason I am asking is I do not know if SME/CentOS handles the hardware/drivers the same as Windoze does.

And the answer to that is "Of course it doesn't".

[grattman]

I was expecting that answer    

[michelandre]

I once installed a SME version 6 on a VMware server then ghost it to a NFS server using g4l. I brought it back on another machine using again g4l and it worked.

I do not know if it will work with LVM etc...

g4l is a little bit slow but it did the work.

Have a look at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l

Michel-André

[SoftDux]

grattman

In most cases you can remove a disk from one server and install it in another server (with different hardware) and it will boot up OK. Linux will find the hardware & load appropriate drivers at boot up time.
This should be OK for Pentium to Pentium systems or AMD to AMD systems etc.

If necessary you can run the CD install (but select the upgrade option) to install new kernels etc for different processors, without losing existing data etc.

If you have  RAID1 system, you can pull out a drive and install it in the new server, and then increase the disk size using this method.
http://wiki.contribs.org/Raid
See Upgrading the Hard Drive Size

Note that if using clone software you need to ensure it supports RAID & lvm etc which many don't.

I want to put a word of caution on this!!! If you have a RAID 5 setup (3 HDD's or more), and they're mixed (I don't know what happens to the same drives - in my case I have 2x SATA & 1x IDE HDD's), and you move them over to a different machine, chances are the RAID will fail completely. This happend to me when I wanted to move from an existing server to a different one (Mobo, CPU, RAM & Chassis was different). Luckely I have backed up the machine prior to the HDD move (even though I didn't think it would have failed).

I do think it has something todo with the HDD order in the RAID stripe set, but I guess when you move a lot of HDD's, you don't take note of the order, and especially the controler order. I think on the 1 PC the IDE was initialiased before the SATA, and on the other PC the SATA is in compatibility mode (different mobo's, different settings / options), so this could play a role as well?

[raem]

grattman

...the old server has SCSI drives and the new server has SATA drives...

Then choose a backup/restore method from
http://wiki.contribs.org/Category:Backup