Solaris

Hi,

I am trying to clone the hard disk image of Solaris OS on one disk to another disk. After some googling I found that there is a command "dd" to achieve this.

However there is a condition to use the dd command, that the disk geometry of both the disks (source and target disks) should be same. While I understand what is meant by disk geometry, I am not sure how to make sure the geometries of both the disks is same.

I can find out the geometry information using "format" command, but how can I impose the same geometry on another disk (in case the second disk's geometry is different) ? Is there an option in "format" command for this?

Hi,

Changing the disk geometry on disks can lead to some problems maybe not so much with ZFS - but UFS can some times give strange problems. This can be due to things like cylinder boundary changes etc.

I'd be tempted to just start and use dd on the raw device if the target is big enough, but failing that you could start with oracle support and this oracle article here.

Regards

Gull04

Which Solaris version do you use? And is it UFS or ZFS filesystem? A very nice method to make a clone is "liveupgrade" if you are on Solaris 10 and UFS. For ZFS filesystems it is even easier to make a clone.

Also you should check the Solaris documentation because there are many good tips on how to do basic administration.

https://docs.oracle.com/en/operating-systems/

If you run Solaris 11.2 or newer, you can use universal archives. Much more flexible than "dd".

Also I want to understand the legality issues while cloning the OS from one disk to another disk.

Is it legal to copy the operating system image from one disk to another disk keeping the same license? Won't we be violating license related restrictions?

If yes, what is the way out for this?

There are various possible licenses. Read the terms of the one you currently use.