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</head><BODY ><div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">Michael,</SPAN></div>
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<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">Do you have instructions on this for Avent? also, is there a sperate support list for Avent?</SPAN></div>
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<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;">tony</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;"><br /><br /></span></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> Hi Jason,</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>> We have an unusual BO server that has a number of tweaks to the</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>> OS due to issues. We now have an identical server we want to put</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>> BO on and by far the easiest way to do it would be to take a full</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>> image from the live server and use that as a base for the new</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>> server. So effectively I would like to ghost the live server to a</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>> replica server. Is there an easy way to do this?</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:maroon;">>></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> Yeah, there are several ways. If it's a box using software RAID1,</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> then simply take a disk out, put an identical (empty) spare disk</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> in. Then take the disk you took out and put that one and another</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> (indentical) empty disk into the new server. The RAID rebuild will</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> populate the "empty" disks with the data from the "full" disks and</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> you have two identical servers.</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> You can also clone hard disks by using software tools such as the</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> Linux "dd" command or various other tools such as Paragon Hardisk</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> Manager and others.</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> Typically this cloning has to be done with the filesystem being</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> unmounted, hence you won't get around to either boot the server</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> with a Linux rescue CD, or still have to (temporarily) take the</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> disk out and into another box to do the cloning. I used to use the</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> Paragon Hardisk Manager a couple of years ago for purposes like</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> that. It's a bootable rescue CD which allows you to clone entire</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> HDs or just partitions, allows to resize partitions and it can also</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> be used to store images of the partitions over the network.</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">></SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> Another option is to "virtualize" the OS you want to clone. For</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> Aventurin{e} I offer a kind of a migration which "rips" the entire</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> OS off a real ("physical") server and turns it into a VPS. Once</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> it's turned into a VPS, it can be very easily cloned and replicated</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> for future re-usage. It's a simple as stopping the VPS, copying its</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> file area and config file and once that's done start both the</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> original and the copied VPS. Or if you plan to use the "clone" for</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> more than one copy, one could create an "OS template" of the VPS</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> which can then be used to deploy future VPS's of the very same kind</SPAN></div>
<div><SPAN style="font-size:10pt;color:navy;">> with all the mods that you initially made.</SPAN></div>
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