Re: [gentoo-user] creating an image of the system

[Benjamin Block]

On 08:30 Mon 09 Sep     , Michael Hampicke wrote:
> Am 08.09.2013 20:51, schrieb Benjamin Block:
> > Hej folks,
> >
> > I wonder what is a good way to create an image of a gentoo-system, so
> > that one can apply it later to the same or other computers.
> >
> > In my case it is a rather simple setup: one partition, no encryption or
> > lvm. Its a debug-setup, so its only used for certain programming-tasks
> > and not for daily work, so no need for something fancy. The time I setup
> > that system I also used only conservative compilation-flags and
> > optimisation, so that it can be used on other CPUs (well, they have to
> > be x86_64 and have to have mmx/sse[23] - but I think every setup that I
> > intend to use this on will have these properties).
> >
> > So I reckon that one could just use tar with permission-preservation and
> > some excludes like dev/sys/proc/tmp. But is this a good idea or is there
> > a better way to do this? I never cloned a gentoo-system, so thats why I
> > would like to be at least somewhat sure about it, so that I don't have
> > to reconfigure it later again, because I messed it up :D
> >
>
> Tar with permission preservation is fine. Just exlude everything in
> dev/sys/proc/tmp as you said. But make sure, that these directories are
> in your tar file, it does not matter if they are empty, but they have to
> exist in order to boot proplery.
>
> One special case. To boot you most likely will need /dev/console and
> /dev/null. Just inlcude those two device nodes in your tar file.
>

Thanks for pointing that out, but why are these both special? Seems to
me like these are also (char)device-nodes and shouldn't they also be
generated by the kernel with DEVTMPFS and then udev at a very early
init-stage?

> Optionally use compression (gz, bz2, xz, ...) on your tar to safe some
> space.
>


- Ben