Re: Tool for semi-cloning a hard drive: recommendations?

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



Dan Thurman wrote:
On Friday 11 January 2008 10:52:50 am Phil Meyer wrote:
Dan Thurman wrote:
Is there a [Fedora/Linux] clone/partition tool that will clone a hard
drive with features that allows one to specify any partition size to the
target new drive?� For example, the original drive may have a partition
with a size of say, 10GB and instead of a direct clone, I'd like to
specify a larger target partition size of say, an increase of 25GB?

As a feature, I'd also like the capability if need be, to be able to
change the source drive's partition sizes and to be able to move
partitions around so as close partition gaps?� System Commander was such
a tool for windoes but is there one for Fedora/Linux?

Any suggestions?
��
Copying the contents of one drive to another is as simple as:
cp -a <source> <target>
Or there is the most correct way:
cd <source>
find . -depth -print | cpio -pdmu <target>
If both file systems are LVM or hardware raid, then that solves the
other part of your question.
But lets look at a specific example since you did not provide one:
Lets assume that /var keeps filling up and its currently on / which is a
fixed partition.
You have hardware based raid from a SAN or new shoebox.
Use whatever tools are appropriate to create <new volume>.
Mount the new raid device on /mnt
mount <new volume> /mnt
Quiesce applications
cd /var
find . -depth -print | cpio -pdmu /mnt
umount /mnt ; mv� /var� /foo ; mkdir /var ; mount <new volume> /var
revise /etc/fstab to correct the new /var
restart apps or reboot
rm -fr /foo
You need to MOVE /var because there will surely be something running
with a file open in /var
You need to be quick making the changeover to the new /var, thus the
commands all on the same command line.
Don't remove the old /var until you are positive that all apps that use
/var have been restarted.� Sometimes a reboot will be necessary.� If
unsure, reboot.
Tried and tested many times. :)
Good Luck!


First, thanks for your tips! I am sincere here and please do not be offended if I come across as an ignorant idiot, of which I can be at times.

We all do that at times.


What happens when you have a multiboot drive, of which there are windoes of many variants (98,2K,XP,...), Solaris, Linux(Fedora,Ubuntu,...)?

Which is why it is not so simple. :-/

Of course, not properly defining the problem deserves your suggested idiot tag:-)


I use ntfsclone and its companions for handling NTFS.




Also - manually "walking through" each partition of the source drive and manually creating/copying partitions to the target drive could be quite a chore I think, and getting all of the MBRs for each partition could be a nightmare?

dd gets the partition boot records. A drive has an MBR, and there's only one:-) It copies the whole partition, the target must not be smaller.

*solaris will require special attention from within &Solaris, Linux does not do ZFS.

*BSD* and Apple's filesystems, probably same as solaris, need fixing from the owning OS.

Z/os disks would be a further challenge.


Which is why I said: "semi-clone" tool...

I must be joking, right? Unfortunately, no. Am I asking for a "pie in the sky"? Maybe.

But then that is why I am asking - although you are absolutely right, I did not 'specify' the conditions and I apologize for that - must be getting old at my age and forget important details. *sigh*



--

Cheers
John

-- spambait
1aaaaaaa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  Z1aaaaaaa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-- Advice
http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

You cannot reply off-list:-)

--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
[Index of Archives]     [Older Fedora Users]     [Fedora Announce]     [Fedora Package Announce]     [EPEL Announce]     [Fedora Magazine]     [Fedora News]     [Fedora Summer Coding]     [Fedora Laptop]     [Fedora Cloud]     [Fedora Advisory Board]     [Fedora Education]     [Fedora Security]     [Fedora Scitech]     [Fedora Robotics]     [Fedora Maintainers]     [Fedora Infrastructure]     [Fedora Websites]     [Anaconda Devel]     [Fedora Devel Java]     [Fedora Legacy]     [Fedora Desktop]     [Fedora Fonts]     [ATA RAID]     [Fedora Marketing]     [Fedora Management Tools]     [Fedora Mentors]     [SSH]     [Fedora Package Review]     [Fedora R Devel]     [Fedora PHP Devel]     [Kickstart]     [Fedora Music]     [Fedora Packaging]     [Centos]     [Fedora SELinux]     [Fedora Legal]     [Fedora Kernel]     [Fedora OCaml]     [Coolkey]     [Virtualization Tools]     [ET Management Tools]     [Yum Users]     [Tux]     [Yosemite News]     [Gnome Users]     [KDE Users]     [Fedora Art]     [Fedora Docs]     [Asterisk PBX]     [Fedora Sparc]     [Fedora Universal Network Connector]     [Libvirt Users]     [Fedora ARM]

  Powered by Linux