MondoRescue is by far one of the best open source apps in existence IMO. It's been around for a number of year, but I always found some excuse to not try it. A little over a year ago I found an opportunity. I needed to make a clone of two production servers. I was going to clone them to virtual machines. I am sure there are a number of ways to do this, but I chose the route of using MondoRescue to make the clone.
First you need to go to the MondoRescue site and download the appropriate packages for your system. Once installed you can run the command mondoarchive. This will walk you through the process of making a clone of your machine. Before you go to far, you might want to look at this document:
http://www.mondorescue.org/docs/hwmigration.pdf
It contains some info about hardware migrations and about editing the mindi script. If you are moving to different hardware and know the modules the new machine use; you will want to modify the FORCE_MODS variable to add them to your image.
Once you have made any changes necessary, you can run mondoarchive. You have many storage options to choose from. I prefer the NFS option myself. I usually choose 4096 as my ISO size. Then I can fit the contents on 1-2 DVDs. The process can take a little while depending what you archive. I usually just backup the OS directories. Everything else should be on a regular backup schedule. Once done you can boot a new system form the first CD/DVD in the set. At this point I usually run the restore in expert mode. You'll usually need to make some changes to the drive device files and/or filesystem size changes. But if you are on the same hardware, you could just type nuke. That will bring your system right back to the point in time that you cloned the system.
I have used Mondo to clone quite a few systems. I have to say that you should really know how Linux works to benefit from this software. I have had a few times where I had to partition the drive myself before I did the restore. You could can also move from disk partitions to LVM if you take the time. And lastly, I have had a number of occasions where I had to fix grub. Other that that, it has done everything it promised. This is definitely a great tool for the everyday admin.
Feel free to reply with your experiences.
First you need to go to the MondoRescue site and download the appropriate packages for your system. Once installed you can run the command mondoarchive. This will walk you through the process of making a clone of your machine. Before you go to far, you might want to look at this document:
http://www.mondorescue.org/docs/hwmigration.pdf
It contains some info about hardware migrations and about editing the mindi script. If you are moving to different hardware and know the modules the new machine use; you will want to modify the FORCE_MODS variable to add them to your image.
Once you have made any changes necessary, you can run mondoarchive. You have many storage options to choose from. I prefer the NFS option myself. I usually choose 4096 as my ISO size. Then I can fit the contents on 1-2 DVDs. The process can take a little while depending what you archive. I usually just backup the OS directories. Everything else should be on a regular backup schedule. Once done you can boot a new system form the first CD/DVD in the set. At this point I usually run the restore in expert mode. You'll usually need to make some changes to the drive device files and/or filesystem size changes. But if you are on the same hardware, you could just type nuke. That will bring your system right back to the point in time that you cloned the system.
I have used Mondo to clone quite a few systems. I have to say that you should really know how Linux works to benefit from this software. I have had a few times where I had to partition the drive myself before I did the restore. You could can also move from disk partitions to LVM if you take the time. And lastly, I have had a number of occasions where I had to fix grub. Other that that, it has done everything it promised. This is definitely a great tool for the everyday admin.
Feel free to reply with your experiences.
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