Is it possible to boot up a Linode image that is copied using the instructions provided here: http://library.linode.com/linode-platfo ... e-over-ssh

I would like to keep a copy on my local machine for development so that I can test out alternate configurations and install updates without worrying about something breaking on my production server. I suppose I can just install another copy of the distro in a local VM and sync up my /home /srv and /etc directories. But it won’t be 100% exact.

Also, are there any instructions for restoring a backup that was copied with the method provided at the link above? An employee noted that they would add restore instructions but the comment was made in 2009 and no such instructions were added to the article.

Thanks

You can, but it's a pain in the butt. Most VPS architectures do not emulate the entire PC boot sequence, but most desktop virtualization solutions do. You'll need to install a kernel and grub, build a partition table, and muck around with some configs to get it going.

Easiest way: clone it to another Linode when you want a duplicate to work with.

I'm assuming you aren't using a configuration management system (cfengine, puppet, chef, etc); if you were, this would be about 100x easier. Moving around disk images is kinda not optimal, for this and other reasons...

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