[ale] backup a running RH7.2 box

[Michael B. Trausch]

Sid Lane wrote:
> all,
> 
> for reasons I do not which to discuss I have a semi-pressing need to
> make as close a backup as possible of a running RH7.2 box.  I can
> shutdown as many services as needed but am somewhat afraid of rebooting
> (especially spinning down the drives since we have had fairly high
> failure rate with that model).
> 

If the second machine is going to have an exactly identical copy of the
drive, then this will work:

	- Unmount everything but /, remount / read-only.
	- On the second machine, use a live distro that has dd and sshd.
	- On the first machine (the one you want to duplicate), keep
	  sshd running (note, this may require you install ssh on /,
	  depending on your partition layout)
	- On the second machine, do the following:

	 # ssh first-machine 'dd if=/dev/name-of-entire-device' | \
	   dd of=/dev/name-of-entire-device

It will take a while, but it will work.  I have used it successfully to
clone drives at work when things break.  :)

	- Mike
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