Re: "cloning" a debian installation

[Kruppt <krupptus@fastmail.fm>]

On 2014-01-31, Kruppt <krupptus@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On 2014-01-31, Fabrice Vaillant <fa.vaillant@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi
>> I'm using debian 7.3 on my laptop (Dell E5530) and it runs perfectly 
>> fine. I'm considering remplacing the hdd by a ssd.
>> The thing is I'd rather not go through the hassle of setting up debian 
>> to suit my computer. The question I'm asking is, what would be the 
>> simplest way(if it is possible) to "clone" my existing installation onto 
>> the new ssd.
>> Knowing that the root and the home are on two different partition of my 
>> hdd which are the only partition on my disk beside the swap.
>> Howewer the ssd is smaller than the disk and the home partition will 
>> need to be resized. I also consider slightly increasing the root 
>> partition size as it is quitte full (77%) after running "apt-get clean".
>>
>> Since I am at it, I would also like to know if it is possible to remove 
>> the swap as it is bad for ssd life to write and rewrite, and I have 
>> plenty (8 giga) of ram.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Fabrice
>>
>>
>
> Yes you can clone it easily with rsync.
> Create the partitions and filesystems on the new SSD,
> via gparted or fdisk, mke2fs or whatever.
> Then use rsync to clone the filesystems onto
> the new SDD partitions/filesystems.
>
> Lets say the original HDD is layed out like below
> as an example, and partitions, filesystems have been created,
>
> Boot up a LiveCD such as SystemRescueCD on a comp with
> both drives connected.
> Make mount points for partitions to
> be cloned and mount them all. 
>
> HDD
> sda1 swap
> sda2 /
> sda3 /home
>
> SSD
> sdb2 swap
> sdb2 /
> sda3 /home
>
>>From Root Terminal run:
> rsync -av --delete /mnt/sda2/ /mnt/sdb2;rsync -av --delete /mnt/sda2/ /mnt/sdb2

Above line should read:
rsync -av --delete /mnt/sda2/ /mnt/sdb2;rsync -av --delete /mnt/sda3/ /mnt/sdb3

> This clones the two filesytems on the HDD to new SSD 
> (since there is nothing on the new filesystem 
> the --delete option is redundant so could be ignored)
>
> Then you would want to install Grub.
> Chroot into the / filesystem on SSD 
> (sdb2 in this example)
>
> mount --bind /proc /mnt/sdb2/proc
> mount --bind /sys /mnt/sdb2/sys
> mount --bind /run /mnt/sdb2/run
> mount --bind /dev /mnt/sdb2/dev
> mount --bind /dev/pts /mnt/sdb2/dev/pts
> chroot /mnt/sdb2 /bin/bash
>
> grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/sdb2 /dev/sdb
> grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
> update-initramfs -uk $(uname -r)
>
> exit chroot
>
>  Then you will need to edit your fstab file,
>  to reflect changes if any, especially if using
>  UUID's. (Run blkid -c /dev/null, the output will
>  show the UUID's, then edit fstab to reflect new UUID's)
>  
>
>