Mike Edenfield writes: > The tar method you're looking for is: > > tar -C /old cpf - | tar -C /new xvpf - > > You'll probably not want to do the entire / in a single go, > since /proc, /sys, and /dev (at least) should be skipped. > Copy /old/sbin -> /new/sbin, etc. for all of the root > folders that aren't their own partitions. The rest you can > do the entire mount point at once, though I'm not sure you > really need to copy /tmp either.
Or bind mount root to somewhere else: mount -o bind / /new /new then contains all of / , but without the filesystems mounted at root. It also has has the original /dev with its necessary entries console and null, but without the stuff udev added. It also takes care of /tmp. Its contents are unimportant, but the permissions of the directory itself matter, the sticky bit needs to be set. Wonko