Re: WAS: Cluster XFS install without CD... MY APOLOGIES

[Mike Sowka <msowka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Russ Ingram wrote:

> Seth Mos wrote:
>
> > It is a shame that tools Like Symantec Ghost are really slow in taking up
> > on different filesystems. ReiserFS or XFS are unsupported. ext2 is your
> > only choice for most commercial tools.
>
> On the contrary, my friends. :-P  There was a post to this list
> probably a month or so ago about a linux Norton Ghost like util
> that supports just about every major fs available in Linux.  I
> didn't actually get to try it out cuz I had just finished cloning
> the drives I needed with xfsdump/xfsrestore when the message came
> across but I remember it because I had needed exactly that not 2
> days before the message hit the list.  The link was
> http://www.partimage.org.  You can also always just do what I did
> and pipe the output of xfsdump to xfsrestore(or do the same with
> tar for that matter), too.
>
>
> Russ
Hello Russ,
I was hoping to tap into your vast knowledge on XFS... :) I've looked at 
www.partimage.com and it seems they don't support the bootdisk/rootdisk 
method (no CD drives on my cluster nodes) on the latest version... I 
like the principle of KISS (keep it simple stupid), and using partition 
image when I've got xfsdump seems a bit redundant :).
I have a question or two about xfsdump, any sugestion are MUCH appreciated:
#1) How is it that xfsdump is able to dump / while it's mounted? And how 
"industrial-strength" is that?
#2) Can you elaborate a bit on your method of piping xfsdump to 
xfsrestore :)?
#3) Here is my "plan" for the cluster:
- after installing the "golden-node" I plan on dumping all of its 
partitions /boot and / and storing the dumps on our head node
- in order to clone: using etherboot (if I can get it running) I run a 
system off of NFS on my head node and xfs restore the partitions onto 
the rest of the nodes (linux xfs doesn't support simultaneous 
xfsrestores yet does it?)
NOTE: my nodes are head-less no == no video adapter
HOW VIABLE IS THIS?
Thank You,
Mike


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