[Sussex] Re: Simple cloning

[ar at f2s.com]

> From: "Brendan Whelan" <b_whelan at mistral.co.uk>
> Regarding using "cp" I had understood (possibly wrongly) that cp didn't
> always give a perfect copy and that rsync was more reliable.
> Would the cp command be cp -Ra  /dev/sda /dev/sdb   ?

cp copies files not devices so /dev/xxx wouldn't be right and 'normal' cp
old-root new-root wouldn't copy special files (device files etc.), although
there seems to be no limit to GNU bells and whistles.

Perhaps if your old and new systems are identical FC5 there won't be any
additional special files on the old system: you could search and compare using
'find'.  Then after cloning you'll have a comparison script ready for tweaking
to check that the clone's identical at filesystem level (for all file types).

> > > 4. Boot the system and allow to settle down.

It's inherently multi-user so this isn't safe.  Booting it as single-user ought
to suffice but the safest would be to use a live CD to copy the old system to
the new.  Even if dd weren't giving you problems with block counts it might
well produce an inconsistent image from a live system.

Anthony