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I have configured my local (Ubuntu) Server in which I have all my services with their own configurations and files, now I want to copy all that to another machine.

What's the right method to do it? An image of the computer? The OS included?

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Well, this is actually a more interesting problem than it sounds like.

There are 2 ways to clone a server (well, there's probably more, but there's 2 that I'll touch).

1) Clonezilla. You download the CD ISO, write it to a CD, boot it up, make a disk image of your server. Copy it to somewhere like a NFS share that both servers can access, then boot the other server up and restore the disk image.

2) Configuration Management (Puppet, Chef) Far more involved, but actually more scalable / rewarding.

You use the DSL (Domain Specific Language) of either Puppet or Chef to define how your servers are configured (you can even reverse-engineer configs from a working system). Then you install your tool on the target server, and run them, and they use the configuration rules to build each new machine in the image of the configuration.

If it were up to me, I'd be going down the Puppet/Chef route. Pretty much because when you come to make 2 to 3 more, or 100 more, then clonezilla becomes a Pain In The Butt.

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  • First of all thanks for your answer. What things will Clonezilla copy: only the processes, the files, the OS? And referring to the other both, which would you choose?
    – Mario
    Nov 18, 2012 at 23:37
  • Clonezilla basically reboots into a root shell, mounts all the disks, and copies EVERYTHING into an image. So you'll get the whole OS, all the files, but you won't get the processes, as it's a copy of the server as if it were shutdown. Nov 19, 2012 at 0:49
  • And FWIW, I'd choose the 2nd option. Puppet (or Chef) Nov 19, 2012 at 0:49
  • Isn't there a similar program to Clonezilla which doesn't clone the OS because I'm seeing that Puppet and Chef requires a lot of resources and I just want to carry my local server configurations to another computer. Than you.
    – Mario
    Nov 19, 2012 at 3:49
  • Buggered if I know. I'm just saying what I'd do, as a professional sysadmin. There's two options. Take one or both, or neither. Nov 19, 2012 at 10:17

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