Tim: >> I just copied one HDD to another today, using the cp command with >> appropriate parameters on most of the directories. Les Mikesell: > cp -a should be appropriate. I usually use --one-file-system and > do it explicitly for each filesystem I want. This probably doesn't > take the extended attributes for SELinux if you have that enabled. I did things like the following, a few times over (for /bin, /etc, /lib, /opt, /root, /sbin, /selinux, /srv): cp -R --preserve=all --parent /usr /mnt/newdrive/ And forgot all about symlinks until after I'd copied the first directory that would have used some. I didn't see any problems. For instance, the /etc/ directory still had things like the following in it when I listed it: rc1.d -> rc.d/rc1.d If I remember correctly, just did a mkdir for /dev & /proc, but I can't remember about /sys. Other things, such as /home, /tmp, /usr, & /var were copied, similar to above, onto their own partitions. (Obviously, I'd made directories for them in the root to be mounted onto, too.) >> If I recall what I did correctly, I didn't copy /dev/ I just made an >> empty /dev directory on the new drive, and let the system fill it on >> the next boot. >> >> I was of the understanding that, now, /dev/ is dynamically generated >> each boot. > 'mount' says that /dev/pts and /dev/shm are mount points but it > doesn't mention /dev. I can't recall exactly what I did, but I'm fairly sure that I didn't copy over /dev. As I said, I was under the impression it's dynamically created each boot time, now. Just going by what happens if I tried to make a new device, or link between things, it's gone the next bootup. All seemed to go well after the first boot off the new drive, except for one very stupid fault: I forgot to set the permissions for the /tmp directory properly. I left it as drwxrwxrwx when it should have been drwrwxrwt. That meant that only the root could log in graphically. And another strange fault that involved a chrooted named sub-directory ownership permissions issue. I'm not quite sure how that one came about, but might have had something to do with the /tmp directory as well. -- Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
