Re: Identical systems

From: Marc M (linuxr_at_gmail.com)
Date: 01/08/05

  • Next message: Mike Klinke: "Re: Fedora 3 and GnuPlot" 
    Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2005 21:27:27 -0500
To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list@redhat.com>

    On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 20:00:40 -0600, Les Mikesell <les@futuresource.com> wrote:
    > On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 18:07, Ashley M. Kirchner wrote:
    > > What's the easiest way to, after a system gets setup (FC3 installed
    > > fresh on the drive), "replicate" it across other machines with the same
    > > hardware? Basically I want to end up with several machines with the
    > > same setup and programs.
    >
    > If the hard disks are identical, you can do a complete image copy which
    > will take the boot setup, partitioning et. along. This is really easy
    > with servers that have swappable drive carriers, but you can also do
    > it over the network. I usually boot a knoppix CD because it detects
    > most hardware and comes up with the network running. Start an sshd
    > server on the master, then from the clone machine do something like:
    > ssh master_ip_address dd if=/dev/hda |dd of=/dev/hda (appropriate
    > disk names, of course). Go to lunch - it will take a while. Repeat
    > if more than one drive is involved. Boot the new machine up and
    > change it's name and ip address.
    >
    > If the drives aren't identical you can do approximately the same
    > by partitioning/formatting the new drive yourself, then copying
    > via tar to the new locations, but in this case you have to make
    > the disk bootable yourself.
    >
    > --
    > Les Mikesell
    > les@futuresource.com
    >
    >
    > --
    > fedora-list mailing list
    > fedora-list@redhat.com
    > To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

    If you only have a handful of machines with exactly identical
    hardware, you could probably swap out drives if you would prefer,
    especially if you have removable drive bays. But really for anything
    more than about two or three installs, I strongly recommend a
    kickstart based install method. You can do it as basically http or
    ftp based. You have to make sure you don't kill the bandwidth of the
    switch or whatever connecting device you are using; make sure it is
    decent and not el cheapo hub. With kickstart you are basically
    sending the install to an ip address that you give it, and you can
    make all installations identical as far as partition sizes, swap
    partition etc. Make your boot floppy, choose all the same settings
    and you are set.

    Marc 

    -- 
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list@redhat.com
To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
  • Next message: Mike Klinke: "Re: Fedora 3 and GnuPlot"

    Relevant Pages

    • Re: The problem with Macs ....
      ... I currently have 2 internal hard drives (on removable ... Like the web cam and printer that work on her PC and not on her Mac ... I taught mainly 'hardware so used 'clones' (more flexible than Compaq ... In 6 years of having machines stripped down to the chassis ...
      (uk.comp.sys.mac)
    • Re: USB PVR recordings -> computer File systems and file types
      ... method on lots of machines of the time. ... one solution - these nibble copied the disk as best they could, ... (IIRC Chuck Peddle also produced a 5.25" drive that could store over 1MB per disk several years before IBM/Shugart got round to doing DSHD drives, and what is more, his system worked on DSDD disks without the need for the high coercivity media) ... Programmable Interface Controller chip on it. ...
      (uk.tech.digital-tv)
    • Re: Foolish project: a fault tolerant disk array
      ... >> hardware hooked between the computer and the disk drives that will ... It is THAT hardware that causes the ... or we use Raid-1 Parallel ATA IDE PCI cards. ...
      (comp.os.linux.hardware)
    • Re: Reviving a Dead Laptop
      ... On most machines, this is ... Damn but that's nice of you John! ... Are you seriously suggesting disk compression on a machine that's ... for nearly as much as new 40GB drives. ...
      (comp.sys.laptops)
    • can you make a hard disk read-only?
      ... I'm wondering if there's some way of making a hard disk drive read-only ... -install a base system from woody CDs with the switch set to writeable. ... You could even do this semi-automatically, if the hardware was designed so ... this for these older drives just by preventing the DIOW- line ...
      (comp.os.linux.security)