[Klug-general] Cloning a Debian LAMP stack inside Hyper-V

[james snyder]

This query could be of interest to Debian users, or people using Linux
servers in a Windows environment. If short of time, you could fast
forward to the question at the bottom of this post. I am now
attempting to clone a live Debian Etch server that I have inherited
and then use it for testing and development. In addition I now have a
separate allocated area for a shiny new ubuntu server running on the
VM which I could use in future to port all the data and configurations
into from the Debian Etch LAMP stack.  The clone will have an added
GUI. BTW I have previously used clonezilla to clone and customize
operating system images for re-distribution over network via
multicasting. Since this legacy Debian Etch LAMP stack resides in a
Virtual Machine, maybe I could attempt to clone using: Hyper V
Operating System.clone Method; CD based image RI setup / RI prep;
Unattended Linux VM configuration tool; VNC to use a GUI on the remote
host, then deploy a native cloning tool? To give a better picture of
the scenario here, there is this excellent reference to this version
of Debian Linux being used on this version of Hyper-V VM that I am
actually using for this experiment, right here:

http://wiki.debian.org/WindowsServerHyperV

Although SuSe Linux Enterprise Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux
already apparently play rather well with the Micro$haft Hyper-V VM, I
am going to have to stick with the existing inherited Debian Etch
(actually just updated it to Squeeze) system because of the policy of
“well if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it”. Inspired by Danbuntu, I
openly confess to being more comfortable with a GUI than the CLI -
even when administering Linux systems, backups and CPAN installations.
(sorry BlackKitty). I am not allowed to tunnel my SSH traffic over
HTTPS port 443 for remote SSH access from home so I am going to only
access this server (i.e. Debian on a Micro$haft 2008 Server R2
HyperVisor VM) onsite in a bunker. I guess I would need to copy the
information every now and then from the live sites hosted on the live
server to the clone / demo / test server. The size of data set on demo
server will ideally be the same as the live server (same configuration
and resizable).  The physical requirements to host all the replicated
sub domains would be about half a terabyte but resizable in case it
grows bigger than that. Why am I explaining all this in my post? Well
there will inevitably be some questions that I will simply not be able
to answer about things that certain people here I know for sure will
already have knowledge of. There are only 2 Linux users in my entire
organization and I am one of them! I am then going to actually take
time to document processes post-installation on my installation
checklist, so that the next person that comes along to inherit this
“poisoned chalice” of a project will at least have some idea of what
is going on. Having given the scenario and context, my question please
to the Debian users and system administrators on this list is:

What approaches or other strategies would you recommend for cloning a
live LAMP stack server system that resides in a MS Hyper-Visor
Virtualization system?

Thanks. Jim.