Dan Thurman wrote:
On Friday 11 January 2008 10:52:50 am Phil Meyer wrote:
Dan Thurman wrote:
Is there a [Fedora/Linux] clone/partition tool that will clone a hard
drive with features that allows one to specify any partition size to the
target new drive?� For example, the original drive may have a partition
with a size of say, 10GB and instead of a direct clone, I'd like to
specify a larger target partition size of say, an increase of 25GB?
As a feature, I'd also like the capability if need be, to be able to
change the source drive's partition sizes and to be able to move
partitions around so as close partition gaps?� System Commander was such
a tool for windoes but is there one for Fedora/Linux?
Any suggestions?
��
Copying the contents of one drive to another is as simple as:
cp -a <source> <target>
Or there is the most correct way:
cd <source>
find . -depth -print | cpio -pdmu <target>
If both file systems are LVM or hardware raid, then that solves the
other part of your question.
But lets look at a specific example since you did not provide one:
Lets assume that /var keeps filling up and its currently on / which is a
fixed partition.
You have hardware based raid from a SAN or new shoebox.
Use whatever tools are appropriate to create <new volume>.
Mount the new raid device on /mnt
mount <new volume> /mnt
Quiesce applications
cd /var
find . -depth -print | cpio -pdmu /mnt
umount /mnt ; mv� /var� /foo ; mkdir /var ; mount <new volume> /var
revise /etc/fstab to correct the new /var
restart apps or reboot
rm -fr /foo
You need to MOVE /var because there will surely be something running
with a file open in /var
You need to be quick making the changeover to the new /var, thus the
commands all on the same command line.
Don't remove the old /var until you are positive that all apps that use
/var have been restarted.� Sometimes a reboot will be necessary.� If
unsure, reboot.
Tried and tested many times. :)
Good Luck!
First, thanks for your tips! I am sincere here and please do not be offended
if I come across as an ignorant idiot, of which I can be at times.
We all do that at times.
What happens when you have a multiboot drive, of which there are windoes of
many variants (98,2K,XP,...), Solaris, Linux(Fedora,Ubuntu,...)?
Which is why it is not so simple. :-/
Of course, not properly defining the problem deserves your suggested
idiot tag:-)
I use ntfsclone and its companions for handling NTFS.
Also - manually "walking through" each partition of the source drive and
manually creating/copying partitions to the target drive could be quite a
chore I think, and getting all of the MBRs for each partition could be a
nightmare?
dd gets the partition boot records. A drive has an MBR, and there's only
one:-) It copies the whole partition, the target must not be smaller.
*solaris will require special attention from within &Solaris, Linux does
not do ZFS.
*BSD* and Apple's filesystems, probably same as solaris, need fixing
from the owning OS.
Z/os disks would be a further challenge.
Which is why I said: "semi-clone" tool...
I must be joking, right? Unfortunately, no. Am I asking for a "pie in the
sky"? Maybe.
But then that is why I am asking - although you are absolutely right, I did
not 'specify' the conditions and I apologize for that - must be getting old
at my age and forget important details. *sigh*
--
Cheers
John
-- spambait
1aaaaaaa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Z1aaaaaaa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-- Advice
http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
You cannot reply off-list:-)
