Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sun, 17 Dec 2006 18:31:48 -0500
From:      John Nielsen <lists@jnielsen.net>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: The moving-your-system FAQ: Anything else I should know?
Message-ID:  <200612171831.50004.lists@jnielsen.net>
In-Reply-To: <200612171516.51460.odilist@sonic.net>
References:  <200612171516.51460.odilist@sonic.net>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sunday 17 December 2006 18:16, Oliver Iberien wrote:
> I'm about to move my system, I've read the FAQ, I don't want to rearrange
> anything. I want to make sure I have the process down correctly before I
> try, so I am asking here. I am using 6.0 #2.
>
> First, I hook up both drives. I partition the new hard drive and label it
> the same way as the previous drive.
>
> Then, I would reboot to single-user mode. I would use newfs to create new
> file systems form each new partition. I mount each partition in turn to a
> temporary mount point and change directory to the newly mounted
> partition. Then the FAQ gives the following command for the dump-copy
> process:
>
> dump 0af - / | restore xf -
>
> This is to be used without modification for each partition.
>
> It this really it? It seems... easy.

Yep, it's really that easy. I've been experimenting with different RAID 
configurations on my main work PC and I've done this procedure at least 
twice in the last few months. (I'll be doing it again in a couple weeks 
when some new drives come in).

If you are changing additional hardware (besides just the hard drive), here 
are some things to keep in mind:

If you have CPUTYPE set in /etc/make.conf you should be sure that the 
setting you had for the old computer is compatible with the new computer. 
If it's not, you should un-set it or set it to the lowest common 
denominator between the two systems the rebuild world, kernel, and all your 
ports (preferrably before you make the switch).

If you use a custom kernel be sure that it has support for the disk and 
network devices on your new system. If it doesn't, add the drivers back in 
or switch back to GENERIC.

It's entirely possible that your hard drive will come up as a different 
device on your new system. This is especially true if you are moving from 
e.g. IDE to SATA or something similar. The easiest way to deal with this is 
after you make the switch. The kernel will boot but then fail to mount the 
root filesystem and prompt for the name of the root device to use. Use the 
kernel's boot output and your knowledge of how you laid out the disk to 
supply the correct device name. After that, you'll probably get other mount 
failures forcing the system to come up in single-user mode. Manually 
mount /usr and re-mount / r/w so you can edit /etc/fstab with the right 
values. Save and reboot.

You might need to do other things like reconfigure X, etc. but that can all 
be handled after you make the switch.

JN



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200612171831.50004.lists>