I haven't actually done it, but you should be able to boot to a live CD initialize the raid and LVM and then add a removable HD to the VG. Create new LV's the same size as your existing ones but make sure you create them on the removable PV then use dd or similar to clone the LV's. Once cloned you can vgsplit to make the removable drive it's own VG that you can then make inactive with vgchange then remove and move to the new hardware. Once on the new hardware you vgmerge to make it all one VG then pvmove the LV's from the removable drive to the new hardware. Once that is done you can vgreduce to remove the external HD from the VG and then pvremove to remove the LVM info from the external. if your system can't be down that long, you might be able to snapshot from the live cd then reboot the old system and then do the cloning and transferring based from the snapshot. Again - sorry but I haven't done this to a running OS just to virtual machines so this is a lot of theory. Another option, (that I have absolutely no experience with,) is doing the same thing over a SAN. Another thing that you will want to pay particular attention to is making sure fstab and grub2 are configured properly for the new system. I am sure where you have a working system you already know this, but for those who find this and want to put LVM on top of a raid with Grub2, make sure you create the raid with the .9 version of the metadata or Grub2 won't work with it.
Hope this helps Shane On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 8:40 AM, Camaleón <noela...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, 29 May 2012 12:35:40 +0800, Joe Aquilina wrote: > >> I am relatively new to Linux/Debian and need some advice on "cloning" a >> Debian system. > > Then I'd ask for someone with more experience can help you with this > because cloning a full system on different hardware with the setup you > describe is not an easy task. Seriously. > >> At work we have a Debian file server, running Squeeze, which needs to be >> cloned to new hardware and then the old machine will be retired. It is a >> file server for a small office, has 4 smallish SATA drives and is setup >> with RAID 5 and LVM. > > (...) > > I used in the past Clonezilla (LiveCD) to achieve the same but with a > simpler setup (non-raided, non-lvm system), so the main things to care > about would be the LVM volume, the raid layout (I think Clonezilla does > not support mdadm, you will have to manually configure the raid) and also > the boot loader. > > Rsync, as you mention, can be also an option but I can't comment on this > because I have no previous experience in cloning with that tool. > > Greetings, > > -- > Camaleón > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org > Archive: http://lists.debian.org/jq5bhm$l92$7...@dough.gmane.org > -- Shane D. Johnson IT Administrator Rasmussen Equipment -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/caplo1l7_irswa1fe-tzrv4d9aofdewjpvfvayse8z1rxhzs...@mail.gmail.com
