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I'm trying to create a physically separate QA server of an existing install of CentOS, which has various software installed. It also has several files and configurations that I need to preserve.

Assuming I have another server identical in specs, what can I do to create a QA server that is more or less exactly the same as my production server?

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You can use a tool like SystemImager to clone your existing server, and deploy the cloned copy to another server (needs DHCP+PXE for best results). SystemImager takes care of IP assignments, and you can change partition layouts and other things by digging in the SystemImager scripts.

Or, you can use blueprint to "reverse engineer" your existing servers configuration, and create puppet/chef recipes. Deploy the new server with those recipes. This is a better approach in the longer term, if you have to maintain many servers regularly.

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If it's identical, you can clone the disks with dd or any other similar tool. You could also just restore whatever backup you have from your production server to your QA server. If the configuration is the same, there's not much to think about.

If you're going to be doing this a lot, you should look into chef or puppet to automate your builds so that you have guaranteed consistency in all new builds without the hassle of having to dd or restore backups.

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  • how would dd work with network settings, in that in my internal network, my ip is different from the other box?
    – user1040625
    Nov 15, 2011 at 14:15
  • @user1040625 Normally, in a situation like this, the server admin makes a checklist of things that need to be changed on cloned machines. This generally includes things like hostname, IP configuration, etc.
    – MDMarra
    Nov 15, 2011 at 14:16
  • puppet is by far the most efficient solution for this. The only downside is that it is more time consuming then a dd. The big advantage is that it keeps the configuration standard all along the way by checking it periodicaly
    – Antoine Benkemoun
    Nov 15, 2011 at 19:38

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