8
votes

Let's say I'm cloning a virtual machine containing a Linux server.

What would you advice to change in the clone? I know - it's kind of vague and depends on what services ware installed on linux but maybe you can throw some ideas?

Right now I change:

  • MAC addresses of virtual interfaces [in fact VMware does it for me]
  • re-generate SSH certificates [including host certificates - rm /etc/ssh/ssh_host*; dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server in the Debian world]
  • change the hostname

What more?

3 Answers 3

10
votes
  • root password change is implied with the "ssh certificates change", I guess
  • other certificates: Mail TLS/SSL, Webserver (Apache?) SSL, known-hosts ssh files, other authentification information (Backups? cron-jobs? fetchmail? FTP and ftpd? special repositories (Debian)?
  • ip address and routing information (well, depends on the location of the vm, sounds like you just cloned a vm which stays at the same Host-system so it might not be relevant here)
  • monitoring: snmpd credentials, maybe automatic data-gathering from other systems?
  • add/remove users (and/or their passwords/home-dirs/...)
  • Backup procedure
  • documentation ;)

You also might want to set on other systems: reverse-dns entries, dns/static routes, update firewall, update central monitoring/syslog...

1
  • better answer than mine though :)
    – Razique
    Sep 8, 2009 at 15:32
5
votes

sys-unconfig (in RHEL) will do it all for you

1
  • Never seen that command. I'll have to try it.
    – ewwhite
    Nov 23, 2012 at 12:34
1
vote

1- Change root password for better security ?

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