Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 17:09:10 +1000 From: "Scott, Brian" <Brian.Scott@det.nsw.edu.au> To: "Eli K. Breen" <bsd@unixforge.net>, <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: Machine Replication Message-ID: <C4FC01A3CF663E45B9F1A58D91FC08D81311AF@alf6.riverina.det.win>
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For what its worth I use Norton Ghost to regularly set up a classroom of machines with FreeBSD 5.3, mostly because other teachers put Windoze stuff on the same boxes so the Ghost setup makes sense. Ghost doesn't understand UFS but doesn't need to. It just takes a block by block copy of the whole partition. To keep the images a reasonable size I do a dd if=3D/dev/zero bs=3D1m of=3D/junk; rm /junk (repeat for every file system) before imaging and tell ghost to do high compression. Compressing lots of zeros is really efficient so the images come out a reasonable size. Using multicasting I can dump the image in parallel onto 15 machines and have the system installed in under 10 minutes. IP configuration is done with DHCP so thats all straightforward. I use a small dhcp client hook script to change the system name based on IP so I even get unique system names The fact that the hardware on all of the target machines is the same is obviously a huge benefit because I can use a single X configuration, but FreeBSD travels to new hardware a lot better than any of the other O/Ss do. The only real issue is that I have some variety of hard disk types but providing the original partition isn't bigger than my smallest target drive, Ghost looks after everything properly. I haven't found a decent freeware alternative that I could get the same results from but hope to some day. -----Original Message----- From: owner-freebsd-stable@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-stable@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Eli K. Breen Sent: Friday, 22 July 2005 5:21 AM To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Machine Replication All, Does anyone have a good handle on how to replicate (read: image) a=20 freebsd machine from one machine to an ostensibly similar machine? So far I've used countless variations and combinations of the following: dd (Slow, not usefull if the hardware isn't identical?) tar (Doesn't replicate MBR) rsync (No MBR support) Norton Ghost (Doesn't support UFS/UFS2?) G4U (little experience with this) Now whether my details are a bit off, that's fine, I don't want this to=20 be diluted in to discussion of minute frivolous details (as these things are wont to do), but what I _am_ looking for is a tried, tested and true method of FreeBSD machine replication, specifically for the 5.3+ releases. Many thanks, -E- _______________________________________________ freebsd-stable@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-stable To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-stable-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" ********************************************************************** This message is intended for the addressee named and may contain privileged information or confidential information or both. If you are not the intended recipient please delete it and notify the sender. **********************************************************************
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