UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi, Experts !
I've met a following challenge:
I have a unix machine, and I need to take a backup of its disk in order to use it for staging of the next machine in the future. But I try to find some information on how it is best to do it.

The spare disk which I have is new and not formatted, but have the same size as the reference disk .

Old machine runs Solaris 8, but the new one will run Solaris 9.

So my questions are:

1). Is there any automatic function to take a "mirror" of the existing disk without formatting it first ?

2). If I need to format the disk, do I use the Solaris 9 installation disk or Solaris 8. Or don't I need the disk at all ? what are the recommendations ?

3). If formatting needed and step 2 is performed, what is the best way to copy the whole disk to the new disk ?

4). Taken that I need to use Solaris 8 to take the backup: shall I upgrade the OS to Solaris 9 later, and shall the new machine work fine in this case ?

Please comment if I am wrong in any statement.
Would appreciate any help, because I am stuck !

Best regards,
Dennis

Dennis,

I think that you want to do a level 0 dump of your files and then after you have created you new disk with Solaris 9 do ufsretore on it. This would be with out formatting your disk. Other wise I would suggest that you download this script. This will create a “mirror” of your current and then you can do an upgrade install on the new disk as Solaris 9. This option will create partition for you. Good Luck

Hi, Larryase !
Appreciate your feeback.
I guess I could try that script that you hinted me about. But is it such a "painless" procedure to upgrade to Solaris 9 ? I thought it was more safe first to install solaris 9 and then do all the changes, or doen not it matter ? Is there any upgrade feature on the Solaris 9 installation CD ?

Another question:
If I take this backup like you advised, shall the harddisk work on a machine with another hardware setup , i.e. newer graphics cards, amount of CPUs etc ? I guess I need to change some file in order for this harddisk to start up in another machine.

Just a detail: I will create a backup on an older Sun Ultra 60, and would like to stage Sun Fire v240 afterwards. Shall it work without complications ?

Dennis,

It looks like your doing a complete up grade of your server. You're changing your OS and your hardware configuration. I misunderstood your intension. I thought this was going to be just an OS upgrade. I think you will have to do a complete install of Solaris 9 on the Sun Fire V240. I know that I had problems install USB drivers when I installed Solaris 8 on a Sun Fire 280R. I think that Solaris 9 does a better job with USB drivers. I can only think that you will have to dump all of you information files or user directory and then dump it back on to your new Sun Fire server. I think this would be the safest thing to do.

Thanks !
I think as well that this will be the best. I just wanted to have a chance to save some time, using the extra harddisk, but I see that it might cause even more problems.
thanks for the feedback !