[clug] Help needed cloning a Debian 2.2 system (linux Digest, Vol 87, Issue 15, Message 1)

Miles Goodhew mgoodhew at gmail.com
Sat Mar 13 03:53:41 MST 2010


Stephen,

On 12/03/2010, at 10:36 PM, linux-request at lists.samba.org wrote:

> Message-ID: <4B99B7E2.9010402 at namsys.com.au>
> 
> G'day there,
> I need some help cloning an old Debian system running applications using
> iBCS.
> What I would like to do is get this running under a virtual machine I think.
> We have had a good run but the replacement systme has been delayed so we
> want to make sure everything keeps running meantime.

	I've done this a couple of times in the past with various Linux flavours. Basically the approach I took was:
1. Mirror the physical disk layout on virtual disks - usually done using a live boot CD and a USB->IDE thingy in various arrangements.

2. Finagle the boot manager config to match any changed disk names or set UUIDs on volume etc so it all matches-up.

3. Reinstall the bootloader (GRUB or LiLo). It can be a drag if you don't have just the right version of GRUB sometimes.

4. Boot it up and cross fingers.

5. If it doesn't work, see what went wrong, attempt to fix and retry.

Not very scientific, but you get there in the end.

It's best if you can operate from a nonvolatile backup of your live system just so you don't break anything too badly.

M0les.



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