Clone Linux server with LVM2 partition

Jephe Wu - http://linuxtechres.blogspot.com


You might want to clone your production Linux server to another, but the production server is having LVM2 partition which is enabled by default installation.


1. My test environment is as follows:

Source:
Dell Latitude C510
CentOS 5
IDE 30G HDD
/dev/hda1 mounted as /boot
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 mounted as /
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01 is swap partition

Destination:
Acer TravelMate 603TER
IDE 20G HDD

2. Cloning concept
a. use RIP(Recovery Is Possible) CD to boot up Acer laptop
b. make /boot normal partition and LVM2 partition
c. create physical volume, volume group and logical volumes
d. mount logical volumes then clone all files over from the source
e. modify /boot/initrd image file if the destination VG and LV names are different from the source ones, it's recommended to use the same name so that this step can be ignored
f. modify /etc/fstab and /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethX etc
g. done

3. Cloning steps
a. download RIP CD from http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/
download smaller non-X version which is about 37M since we don't need X window for cloning

b. boot up the Acer laptop using RIP cd, choose boot up option 2 to skip keyboard map

c. login as root without password

d. Set up the ip address for Acer
# ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.3 up (assuming the source server IP is 192.168.0.2 and they are on the same network)

e. Make partitions for Acer
If the both the source and destination hard disks are the same size, you can just use the following command to clone the partition table over.
# ssh 192.168.0.2 'sfdisk -d /dev/hda' | sfdisk /dev/hda

In my case, I have to do it manually since my Acer HDD is smaller. So I created /dev/hda1(type:83) and /dev/hda2 as LVM(type: 8e)

f. Create logical volumes and make file systems on Acer
# pvcreate /dev/hda2 (initialize it)
# vgcreate VolGroup00 /dev/hda2 (use the same volume group name as the source so that you don't have to modify /boot/initrd image file later)
# vgdisplay -v (to find out the total PE numbers and available space to create logical volumes)
# lvcreate -l 4617 -n LogVol00 VolGroup00 (to create / partition )
# lvcreate -l 128 -n LogVol01 VolGroup00 (for swap partition inside LVM)

note : you don't have to create the same number of extend for each logical volume, you can specify any value, this setting is not fixed somewhere in source server, so you can still be able to startup destination server later.

# mkfs -t ext3 /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
# mkswap /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol01
# mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hda1 (for /boot)
# e2label /dev/hda1 /boot (for labelling /boot partition, to be the same as the source which is indicated in /etc/fstab)


g. Cloning over everything from the source
cd /mnt
mkdir hd
mount /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 hd
cd hd
mkdir boot proc sys ( boot is a separated partition, and proc and sys are empty folder for kernel memory information)
mount /dev/hda1 boot
ssh 192.168.0.2 'cd /; tar --exclude ./proc --exclude ./sys -cpf - .'| tar xvpf -

h. Make necessary changes for Acer
cd /mnt/hd;chroot .

vi /etc/fstab(optional) (since you are using the same volume group and logical volume names, so you can ignore this step, otherwise, change the names to the new ones)

vi /etc/grub.conf (optional) (since your are using the same volume group and logical volume names, so you can ignore this step, otherwise, change the all root= line to the new logical volume path)

vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethx (to change IP address and comment out hardware address line)

i. Install grub for Acer
cd /mnt/hd
chroot .
grub-install hd0
exit

change necessary configuration such as /etc/sysconfig/networking-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 mac address

j. Finishing up
cd /mnt/hd
umount boot
cd /
umount /mnt/hd
reboot

Note:

1. if you forgot to do something, you can always reboot the destination server with RIP CD again, the following are the steps:
login as root after RIP bootup
sh /etc/rc.d/rc.lvm2 start (to activate all volume groups)
(if not, use 'vgchange -a y' to activate all volume groups
cd /mnt
mount /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 hd
cd hd
mount /dev/hda1 boot
chroot .
now you can do whatever forgotten changes

2. If you used the different volume group and logical volume names, you need to do some additional changes:

2.1 change /boot/initrd-2.6.18-8.el5.img before rebooting destination
cd /mnt
mount /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 hd
cd hd
mount /dev/hda1 boot
chroot .
cp /boot/initrd-2.6.18.el5.img /boot/intrd-2.6.18-el5.img.orig -va (backup it first)
cp /boot/initrd-2.6.18-8.el5.img /tmp/a.img
cd /tmp
zcat a.img > a
mkdir a.dir
cd a.dir
cpio -iv < ../a vi init (to change VolGroup00 to vg0 and LogVol00 to lv0 and LogVol01 to lv1 provided you used the names vg0, lv0 and lv1) find . | cpio -co > ../b
cd ..
gzip b (zip file b as b.gz)
cp b.gz /boot/initrd-2.6.18-8.el5.img
sync
exit
cd /
umount /mnt/hd/boot
umount /mnt/hd
reboot

2.2 change /etc/fstab to reflect the new volume group and logical volume names
2.3 change /etc/grub.conf root= line to use the new names