[H-GEN] Ghost for Linux or *nix for that matter

[Mark Suter]

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Jay,

> The idea of course is to set up one machine as required and
> "ghost" it over to the other machines and keep that image for
> emergency reloads.
>
> Is anyone aware of anything that can do the job under Linux, or
> does it have to be Ghost from Symantec?

There are at least half a dozen utilities that can do this.  At
the moment, my favourite method is using a www.lnx-bbc.org boot
disk and running something along these lines:

    # mkreiserfs /dev/hda2
    # mount -o reiserfs /dev/hda2 /mnt
    # cd /mnt
    # ssh otherhost tar cpSf - / | tar xpSf -
    # [ make new system bootable ]

If the disks are all the same size, you could even do something
very close to ghost in its raw form, for example,

    # ssh otherhost dd if=/dev/hda of=- | dd if=- of=/dev/hda

This is all part of the unix tradition - a collection of tools
that each do a well defined task well and can be combined in
ways never envisioned by their creaters:

    http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch01s06.html

Yours sincerely,

- -- Mark John Suter  | I know that you  believe  you understand
suter at humbug.org.au | what you think I said, but I am not sure
gpg key id 2C71D63D | you realise that what you  heard  is not
mobile 0411 262 316 | what I meant.        Robert J. McCloskey
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