LVM backup/restore question
 

Hi All,

I am doing a LVM replicate to another server.
Example :
server1.foo.com has / , /boot , swap and few LVM partitions. All are in /dev/sda disk of size 80GB. /dev/sda5 is a LVM partition which has only one vg00 and it has 2 LV's (/var and /usr) and a SAN storage connected to this server which has around 500GB of single partition(a LV partition) called /data and its under vg00 .
Now I have build another server called "server2.foo.com" with same RedHat OS version - RHEL 4 and want to import the same LVM setup at destination.
Down time or unmounting the filesystem is not a problem (but am trying to reduce the down time as much as possible).

Is there any way that I can take a proper snapshot of whole LVM disk and restore with same setup at destination without losing the data and the lvm file system layout ?

Can you please help me in guiding and assisting me on this.

Thanks,
rak

I would like to add a note here that :

New disks will be used at the target server and the source servers disks will be formatted.

Is there any way that we can snapshot the lvm setup to different server on different disks ?

-Rak

This sounds like what you want http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/snapshots_backup.html

Thanks for your reply.
This method does not works as it requires to move the same disk to destination server.

What I am ready to do now is create similar LVM partitions structure and simply create empty ext3 file system at the destination. But not aware of import and create similar LVM structure at destination with or without data.

In my case the disks are different and cannot move the disks to any other servers.
Is there any way we can take a snapshot of the whole LVM structure in a file with or without data ?
So that I can import and create similar structure at destination with or without data ?

Thanks,
Rak

Please correct any of the following that are wrong:

I assume the SAN is separate & only needs to be connected to server2.

I assume that server2 is also a single drive unit & which is at least 80 GB.

You mention "vg00" in 2 contexts: server1 & the SAN storage connected to it. Are these 2 different LVM systems, or are they 2 PV's assigned to a single VG? (I hope the former.)

I have seen Clonezilla do a bare metal restore to the orig. h/w, I don't know if it can restore to different h/w.

Did you consider putting server2's HD temporarily in an external enclosure & dd'ing server1's (80 GB) HD to it?