From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jan 11 03:00:26 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D544A16A4CE for ; Sun, 11 Jan 2004 03:00:26 -0800 (PST) Received: from holodoc.ip.se (ua-213-115-163-137.cust.bredbandsbolaget.se [213.115.163.137]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F0F6843D46 for ; Sun, 11 Jan 2004 03:00:19 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from rd@tilde.se) Received: by holodoc.ip.se (Postfix, from userid 103) id 085E712845A; Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:58:05 +0100 (CET) Received: from nyalaptopen (c-f79572d5.02-85-73746f13.cust.bredbandsbolaget.se [213.114.149.247]) by holodoc.ip.se (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6B409128450 for ; Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:58:03 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <00a301c3d832$16a40c00$7001010a@nyalaptopen> From: "Rickard Dahlstrand" To: Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 12:00:12 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 X-Sanitizer: This message has been sanitized! Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.1 Subject: automatic dump and restore over X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:00:26 -0000 Hi, I think I have a plan for upgrading a large number of computers over the ne= twork. I would really appreciate some help finding flaws in this idea. All the servers is installed with one partition for /, one for /var/. When = I do the initial install I move the /etc to /var/etc and synlink /etc to po= int at /var/etc. This should make the / partition exactly the same on all t= he servers. On the reference server (where I do all the upgrades) I then use dump to c= reate a file from the / partition. This file is the zipped and moved to my = laptop from installation on all the other servers. The laptop is then connected to the same network as the server that needs u= pgrading. The laptop is running DHCP, TFTP and NFS services. All servers are set to boot using PXE and once I reboot it the server boots= an image from the laptop containing a picobsd dist with a modified startup= script.=20 This script automatically mounts the hard drive on the server and a directo= ry on the laptop containing the dump-file from the reference server. Then i= t uses restore to write the dump-file over the / partition on the server. After the upgrade is complete I reboot the server without the DHCP server a= ctive and the server should boot using the new / partition. Can this work? I have read that dump/restore is the best solution for backi= ng up disks. Could there be any problems using restore on a partition alrea= dy allocated? Thanks, Rickard.