UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have a Solaris Ultra 10 Box, which contains all my software, I got a new Sun Ultra10 with the same configuration. Can I ghost the it ? Does Unix support any such application.

Could you please explain what you mean by the term
'ghost' and what you are really hoping to do? Thanks.

Basically ghost means , duplicating a Unix box with another.
In NT we use the term ghosting the image.

thanks

Still confused.
<P>
What is the purpose of the 'ghost image'? Real-time
failover? Disaster recovery? Disk Mirrowing?
<P>
Also, the term 'image' is also confusing. What do
you mean by image? The entire file system? The system
RAM? The kernel? The process table?
<P>
It would be helpful to talk in terms of capability and requirements and specifics of what exactly you wish to
accomplish.

Ok,
I am assuming you basicly want to copy one disk to another.

I have used Norton Ghost to copy an entire Linux installation from one machine to another.
If that is what you are wanting to do just check that the ghosting software is compatable with the partition type you want to ghost( I'd suggest taking a look at Norton's software).

Hope this is of some use )

Okay-

This is an old thread, so hopefully this helps SOMEONE...

well, ghosting is not a totally foreign concept to unix, it's just a bit "different". In unix, you have some options of doing this, take a tape backup to a device via "tar", and untar to the new disk, this implies that you have a running system on the new box. Or, this is my favorite, pull the drive out of the system you want to ghost "to", put it into the other system, now you have the option of doing *fsdumps of the slices of the "from" disk to the new disk, or, if they are IDENTICAL disks (VERY IMPORTANT!!!, do NOT do this between non-identical disks, as the disk labels go and everything in a brute force dd, you can finesse this and take just the tracks outside of the label, etc.), use the "dd" command to do an exact copy of one disk to the other. This can be dangerous, I watched someone wipeout his entire system, by "dd"-ing a blank disk to his running system, lesson here is: make sure you get the input and output devices straight. And you will be dealing with devices at this level, not filesystems, so you are writing to and from device files, not copying file systems. So keep in mind how much damage can be done to your system by doing this wrong.



Hope this helps someone,


loadc

i think what you are looking for is called Jump Start...look into it


http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/ds/ds-webstart/

Solaris JumpStart™
Solaris JumpStart™ software is an automated system that can install and set up a Solaris system anywhere on your network without any user interaction. Enterprise customers wishing to install or upgrade their Solaris systems on a larger scale or in a replicated fashion can take advantage of Solaris JumpStart capabilities. With Solaris JumpStart software, the Solaris Operating Environment and application software can be placed on centralized install servers and the install process can be customized by senior administrators. This capability reduces administrative costs by enabling less-experienced administrators -- or even end users -- to install the software they need.
Network administrators can take advantage of Sun Enterprise™ Web Start Server to set up and customize Solaris JumpStart for their networks. In the latest version, Solaris JumpStart software has been enhanced to support installations in a DHCP environment