Could we possibly have an option to copy an existing disk image when we create a new one? I have offsite rsync backups, but I'd like to use the new space that was recently added to accounts to store an exact copy of my root filesystem.

That way I can create a new file system with a known working setup before I do anything crazy. And if I mess things up, I just have to swap which disk i boot as root, and continue as before.

thanks,
Greg

Hi,

This has been suggested many times and you can do this yourself, using commands like cpio

Try searching the forum for more info.

Adam

True, but I second the request for making it part of the Linode Platform Manager.

I'm not sure of the technical details of how that is set up, but if we can currently create and resize images, I don't see why we couldn't add duplicate to it.

Doing so yourself has been explained in a dozen ways (most of which recommend having another distro to boot into), all not as simple as clicking a button ( )...!

anyway, it'd be a good idea...

-j



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I did before I posted, as it is I use rsync to backup my filesystem remotely already. Solutions using tar and cpio are not what I'm looking for. It would be much handier for a user to be able to down their node, click a button and copy the file that represents that nodes file structure. A lot quicker if you're going to be experimenting with, and possibly thrashing, your node on a regular basis.

And considering that a UML file system is just a file per partition (unless things have changed) then it's a fairly small change to add to the control panel.

I don't know if there's enough demand for this, which is the main reason I posted this.

Greg

I think that would be pretty cool. I would feel much easier about experimenting with different distros if I can download my current setup and upload it back and know it will work. And I believe Caker said once that it was a compressed file so a 1gb paritition isn't exactly 1gb is size.

I agree with everyone. I would very much like to see this feature added.

x2

Ok, it's out there... It will let you duplicate an image that's in use, so if you want a valid copy use with caution.

Enjoy
-Chris

Wow!

Thanks

Damn sweet, Chris!

Personally, i think you should get some kind of award for the quick response time and not only!

p.s. I haven't requested such a feaature because I used a 3rd 80Mb Debian distro from where i dd'ed one disk image to another ... works like a charm (very helpful before doing important operations like "emerge -uDav world"):

dd bs=1024 if=/dev/ubdc of=/dev/ubdd

If you issue dd from a gentoo box, then /dev/ubdc -> /dev/ubd/2
The whole process takes from 30mins to 1 hour for a 1.5Gb disk.

Just used Chris's web "duplicate image" feature and it now takes around 2 (two) minutes to duplicate my 1.5Gb main Gentoo image ... what can I say, from 30 to 2 it sure is a big difference

Remember to unmount (or better shutdown your linode if you wanna make an image of the main disk) before duplicating as Chris already mentioned. I tried it while running (for fun) and the dupe got a messed up journal, but could have been worse

Thanks again Chris!

// a scheduling feature to be able to run this weekly would be surreal

thanks a lot Chris