Capability verification

[edwtops]

Having been burned trying to image Linux systems before, I thought that I would ask a very specific question regarding R-Drive Image.
I am looking at R-Tools, as I have had dealings with a support company who used R-Tools and raved about their products.

I have a single server, at a remote location that I need to upgrade the disk space on.
I intend to remove a RAID-5 array of 8x146Gb SAS drives and replace them with a RAID-5 array of 8x600Gb SAS drives.

The server hardware is HP Compaq DL 380 G5 with internal raid controller.

What I would like to do is to cold boot the machine using a CD with drive imaging tools installed, that would then read the array contents and write it to a compressed image file on an external USB drive.
I would then replace the disks, and then reverse the procedure - booting from the same CD and writing the image back to the new larger disks.
It would be very advantageous to me if I could extend the c0d1p1 partition at the same time as writing the image back to the bigger array, but this is not 100% necessary.

The file system on the server is Linux Ext3 and LVM on a RedHat EL 5.2 OS, kernel 2.6.18-92

Code: Select all

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
                      131G   15G  109G  12% /
/dev/cciss/c0d1p1     663G  381G  248G  61% /data
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1      99M   12M   82M  13% /boot
tmpfs                 2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /dev/shm

Filesystem    Type   1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
              ext3   136743936  15547496 114138216  12% /
/dev/cciss/c0d1p1
              ext3   694259868 399035184 259389296  61% /data
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1
              ext3      101086     12180     83687  13% /boot
tmpfs        tmpfs     2023256         0   2023256   0% /dev/shm

Disk /dev/cciss/c0d0: 146.7 GB, 146778685440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 17844 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

           Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2              14       17844   143227507+  8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/cciss/c0d1: 733.9 GB, 733909245952 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 89226 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

           Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/cciss/c0d1p1   *           1       89226   716707813+  83  Linux

Is this possible to achieve using R-Tools Drive Image?

[Alt]

Most likely, not. R-Drive Image doesn't support Linux LVM.

[edwtops]

Ahh - ok.

Thanks anyway

[Darr247]

Most likely, not. R-Drive Image doesn't support Linux LVM.

Though the 'Features' tab (e.g. on http://www.drive-image.com/) says R-Drive Image now supports LVM, possibly it's still not doing so quite correctly.

Try this... boot from the 'everything' ISO (http://centos.org/download/) and do a UEFI install of CentOS 7 onto an 8GB USB 2.0 stick (letting Anaconda, which is the RedHat/Fedora/CentOS installer program, automatically do the partitioning, which results in LVM being used), boot from the stick to add the user to the /etc/sudoers file using visudo, add the Google-Chrome repo and install Chrome using yum, then try to clone that USB stick to an 8GB USB 3.0 stick in R-Drive Image... whether you use the Copy all, Realign or Expand/Shrink method (and Same or Different signatures)... the cloned USB stick won't boot to the logon screen, complaining about the swap partition (hit Esc once the '7' splash image appears during boot to show line-by-line progress) ... then after the failed boot, if you examine the cloned USB stick in R-Drive Image again, only the olive-bannered LVM Protective Partition GPT is present... the orange-bannered cl-swap LVM and cl-root LVM partition members that were visible immediately after the cloning are no longer there.

I don't currently have another method to test it... later this afternoon I'll try doing a C7 install to an external hard drive, then boot from that and try a dd copy from stick to stick and see if that method is successful. Clonezilla Live is not UEFI compatible, and also too tiny on my 4K displays to make it worth the hassle of all the changes in BIOS necessary to boot from it anyway.

Thanks.

[Alt]

Most likely, not. R-Drive Image doesn't support Linux LVM.

Though the 'Features' tab (e.g. on http://www.drive-image.com/) says R-Drive Image now supports LVM, possibly it's still not doing so quite correctly.
Thanks.

Many things have changed since 2011, haven't they?" Now R-Drive Image fully supports Linux LVM.