RANT ALERT!! RANT ALERT!! Zlfar M. E. Johnson wrote: > Thanks for the replay. I was not sure which man page you were referring to, > but I took a quick glance at installboot. > I have often cloned linux systems at work with rsync. I have also done > bare-bone restores using system-rescue cd and backups from our backup system. > I thought it would be interesting to see how others do it with openbsd.
very simply, actually. :) > What exactly are you referring to " Diskimage route it's not so easy."? Are > you referring to cloning the system? Similar to this example > http://www.monkey.org/openbsd/archive/tech/0112/msg00079.html > What tool does one use to Diskimage the system? > You could probably try this tool if I understand what you mean by "Diskimage" > http://sanbarrow.com/moa-video-vdiskmanager-as-ghost.html All the "P2V" (and imaging) stuff is really missing a big point: If the target machines weren't hopelessly broke, it shouldn't be a big deal to move to a VM system. Just activate your DR plan! Ah, but the problem is...lots of broken designs exist, running with obsolete apps on obsolete and over-complex OSs that can't run on modern HW and no one can figure out how to reload the apps on a new system. Why are there no tools for P2V for OpenBSD? Why would you need them? The tools you need are in the OS: dump/restore, tar, cpio, dd. Granted, you might just have to spend a couple hours understanding how your OS works..but MUCH better to do that on your schedule than with 500 people sitting around idle asking "When are the computers going to be back up?" These tools shouldn't need to exist for other OSs, either. Just activate your Disaster Recovery plan on to the VM system. Oh, you don't have a DR plan? That means your system was not well designed. Migrating a system SHOULD be no more difficult than restoring your backup...and you should have tested that process. Oh, your system is too old to run on modern HW? Your system was either not well designed or not well managed, in that it was allowed to outlive its useful life. Oh, no one knows how to recover your existing system? Your system was not well managed, as documentation wasn't kept, people weren't cross-trained (or they were all driven away faster than they could cross-train new people as happened at my previous employer). Oh, your system is too complicated or time consuming to migrate through normal DR processes? Perhaps sticking configuration info in magical places that most backup systems never touch? Bad decisions were made on the design and product selection. Hey, these things happen, so P2V software for some OSs is pretty close to mandatory for some tasks...but remember what it is -- it is a work around for a problem which should NEVER HAVE EXISTED in the first place, and an indication of bad design, not a proper way of doing things. Quintuple bypass surgery and heart-lung machines are really fantastic equipment...but it is better if you can admire them from a distance... It is easy to get into the "cool tools" mindset. You should have seen the first draft of the note I first posted to this thread -- I had a really cool process of using dd and growfs and then I realized I was solving a problem that didn't exist (there are times when you might want to use dd and growfs, and at least one time when I seem to have NEEDED to, but that's pretty unusual). Backup! Restore! Ta-Da! Failure to be able to do this should be your first warning sign that something is very wrong, and rather than migrating or virtualizing your problems, be a real engineer and FIX the real problem, don't just change it. Remember, virtualized systems can need Disaster Recovery, too... (end Rant) Nick.
