Disk cloning

[Dimitri Yioulos]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:01:31 +0100, Tino Schwarze wrote
> Hi Dimitri,
> 
> > I kind of had the feeling there was no simple way of doing this.  And, of course, I've
> > just been made aware that there are MySQL databases running on the target machine.
> 
> Then run mysqldump prior to rsync'ing.
> 
> > I've certainly considered rsync (in fact, I use it for backup tasks on my own systems).
> >  So, what you're saying is the I should:
> > 
> > - create the same filesystems on sdb as on sda
> > - mount sdb / on sda /newroot
> > - mount e.g sbd /var on sda /newroot/var, sdb /usr on sda /newroot/usr, etc.
> > - run rsync, with exclusions
> 
> Periodically, after doing mysqldump.
> 
> > - recreate or copy MBR to sdb (don't know how)
> 
> dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1
> 
> You could also do an initial dd of /dev/sda to /dev/sdb to have all MBR,
> partitions etc., then fsck all file systems on /dev/sdb with correcting
> all errors, then use that as a starting point for first rsync (which
> will correct all inconsistencies).
> 
> You may schedule the daily mysqldump/rsync job via cron.
> 
> HTH,
> 
> Tino.
> 

The reason I'm asking my smart colleagues on this list is that there seem to be dozens
of conflicting possible solutions.  I truly appreciate everyone's input and patience
with me.

So, while dd isn't recommended for this project but, in concert with rsync, and doing a
dump of the MySQL databases, it is possible?

Dimitri

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