[kwlug-disc] Question about transplanting linux system

[L.D. Paniak]

If you have (proper!) references to filesystems/partitions by UUID in
grub and fstab, dd should work for you.
I would expect modern grub to do this already.
All you need to do is make sure fstab is using UUIDs.

I have dd'd running systems to new disks.
So long as you are not updating packages/config during the transfer, the
new image should run just fine.

If the new drive image has substantial low level configuration changes
(eg. BIOS vs EFI boot), you can
wipe out / on the new image and rsync in the existing root filesystem.
If you take special care to fix up the copied OS to match the new
configuration (eg. grub-efi-amd64 package), things will work there as well.

Friends, please do not use hardware RAID cards!

On 4/26/20 12:45 PM, Federer Fanatic wrote:
> cp -a. Booting from a usb?
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>  Roger Federer Fanatic Extraordinaire :-)
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 11:41 AM Mikalai Birukou via kwlug-disc
> <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org <mailto:kwlug-disc at kwlug.org>> wrote:
>
>     I have a system with two drives, and I want to move linux (ubuntu
>     here)
>     from one drive to another.
>
>
>     Context:
>
>       - Original drive is a fixture created by RAID card. Card messes up
>     configurations every several weeks, so a want to use a different
>     drive
>     on a different physical connection (yes, sata slot from DVD in
>     this old
>     IBM System X server :) ).
>
>       - I suspect that dd copy won't work, cause new drive (ssd)
>     doesn't go
>     in place of the original one. It goes into a new location, and
>     grub+fstab settings would be different.
>
>       - dd takes time, and I want to keep machine operational during
>     the move.
>
>       - I already installed ubuntu on new drive, hoping to reconstruct
>     original file tree in a new place by copying on filesystem level (vs
>     low-level dd).
>
>
>     Question:
>
>       - How can you do this copying of original system onto new system?
>
>       - Should it by rsync or tar pack& unpack? What flags to use? Is tar
>     complain about skipping socket is safe in system backup for future
>     recovery.
>
>       - Can there be a catch in this approach?
>
>
>     Thank you.
>
>
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>
>
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