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Re: Windows Server to Debian migration



On Sat, Sep 03, 2005 at 02:02:09PM -0400, Joseph H. Fry wrote:
> 
> Thanks to all of you who have responded so far!
> 
> Right now I am trying to decide how I will migrate from a test server I will
> be setting up to to the production server.  I always work a project
> backwards when planning, that way I always know where I'm going.
> 
There are certainly worse ways to plan :-)

> If I used dd to copy the disks, and assuming I didn't compile a custom
> kernel, should the changes in hardware really matter.  Both machines will
> use smp kernels, so essentially wouldn't the new hardware be detected and
> just work?
> 
If you have discover and such running then you are probably OK.  The
problem is if you have certain kernel modules loading up and others not
loading based on your test server hardware, moving to the new server
could prove troublsome.

> If not, I figure once I have the test server configured and ready for the
> real thing I can use
> 	dpkg --get-selections > file
> and
> 	dpkg --get-selections < file
> To replicate the installed packages on the production server.  But that
> done, how do I replicate the configuration of those packages between
> machines.  I simply need the configuration of all the packages, the
> structure of my OpenLDAP install, apache, ftp, samba, and any other
> customizations I make.  Any accounts and data I created on the test server
> can be recreated.
> 
If you are installing exactly the same packages and all other things are
the same (except for hardware), you can safely copy most of /etc
(except for things like /etc/modules, /etc/hdaparm.conf, and so on).

> Is there a tool or other simple way to do this.  Or should I just keep a log
> of every file I modify and just copy those files.
> 
Unfortunately, there are no tools of which I am aware to do this.

> Any advice would be appreciated.  I really don't want to do this piecemeal
> as suggested, mostly because I think the first thing I would need to set up
> is ldap since other services may need to be configured to authenticate
> against it... and I'm not sure I want to try and figure out how to integrate
> ldap with a windows AD server for authentication.
> 
> Does anyone have any experience replicating a Debian install from one
> machine to a entirely different machine?  I'm sure it's been done, but what
> is the easiest way to maintain package configuration and account for the
> enormous changes in hardware?

Personally, I have done this, even going to a completely different CPU
(PPro to Via Eden C3), which required, among other things, a new kernel,
and taking care to change or remove things like the hdparm
configuration, the lm_sensors alarm setting and the ntp drift data.

-Roberto

-- 
Roberto C. Sanchez
http://familiasanchez.net/~roberto

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