[NBLUG/talk] Duplicating a server

Chris Palmer chris at eff.org
Mon Nov 21 10:32:30 PST 2005


I think it's important that you have the same operating environment
(same version of same OS with same versions of same packages installed),
to minimize unexpected hilarity. When you do need your backup server, it
will be in an emergency situation, and the last thing you need at that
time is to find out that they are running different major versions of
(say) Apache.

I'll go into a bit more detail since the original poster signalled that
he is new to The Linux Fun.

One relatively easy way to achieve this is to get two computers, and two
identical drives (same model, capacity and vendor). Install all your
goodies onto system A. Then (in a third computer, probably) duplicate
the drive from system A onto the drive-to-be for system B, using dd.
(See the dd(1) man page.) Then install drive B into system B, and set up
both A and B to use the same software update schedule. Then set up your
rsync jobs in cron.

I suggest using dd oly because doing one from-scratch install and a
duplication is potentially faster and less error prone than doing two
from-scratch installs.


-- 
http://www.eff.org/about/staff/#chris_palmer

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