Clone a hard disk with rsync

From: Ralph.White (ralph.white_at_gmail.com)
Date: 11/26/04 

Date: 26 Nov 2004 02:47:09 -0800

Hi there,

I need to make a 'complete' clone of a hard disk to a second, 'backup'
hard disk which is now installed in the same computer, but will later
be moved to a different computer. This means RAID is out of the
question. I also plan to update the backup disk nightly. I think rsync
is appropriate for the job.

In the event that the main disk dies, I would like to be able to just
plug in the 'backup' disk and have the system boot and run normally.

My question is, how to do this? Will the following work:

rsync -a --delete --force --exclude /backup/ / /backup/

Do I need to exclude additional things such as /var/run, etc.? I've
seen people recommend excluding dev/ and other system directories but
if I do that, I guess the backup drive won't be bootable?

Do I need to do something extra? (install LILO on the second disk I
assume, but something else?)

Any suggestions welcome. Thanks!

Ralph W.

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