how to tranfer contents from one system to another

linuxbee1 · 03-25-2008, 09:24 AM

I have a computer with ubuntu OS which contains all the files, directories, permissions, user accounts, website informations... and another with debian OS.
I want to transfer all the files, directories, permissions, user accounts, website informations... from the ubuntu system to the debian system.

Can anyone tell me how to do it? Does the rsync work? If so, how should i use it?

Thanks in advance.

TigerOC · 03-25-2008, 09:43 AM

Clear the drive of the receiving box with fdisk. I would use dd to drop the contents of the drive to the new drive. There is an excellent thread on the use of dd so just do a search for it. It will absolutely replicate the system.

linuxbee1 · 03-25-2008, 10:15 AM

Will the OS of the receiving box be debian, if i did dd??

TigerOC · 03-25-2008, 10:28 AM

It will be identical to the Ubuntu box. dd stands for disk dump. Done correctly it will be an exact replica even down to the boot sector.

linuxbee1 · 03-25-2008, 10:37 AM

I need to preserve the debian os. Is it possible to use rsync to tranfer all the contents, user accounts...

jefro · 03-25-2008, 10:57 AM

I would say don't do it, you won't get it to work if you have a very complex configuration. I have never heard of an app for that use. We can't get an upgrade to work.

Rsync is a good tool to sync data. It can be used to copy. You would need a complete list of the folders and files you want to transfer. Might be easier to just use gui to transfer data across shares one at a time.

linuxbee1 · 03-25-2008, 11:23 AM

Thank you both for your reply. will it be useful if i clone or image my harddisk. I understand that if i do a clone or image, my os for the cloned system will become ubuntu. The reason i need to tranfer all the data is because the current system is old and has less disk space. The other one has bigger disk space.

TigerOC · 03-25-2008, 12:03 PM

You wouldn't be able to mix systems but you could transfer things like user accounts and files that are not os dependent.

tronayne · 03-25-2008, 12:17 PM

Something you might consider is just copying, say, the user directories; e.g., /home/* using scp. It may not be elegant, but it sure is simple and you can copy only the things you need to (/home, /usr/local and the like).

Just get on the target in /home and do scp -pr source_machine:${PWD}/* . which will do a recursive copy of all the subdirectories.

Might be useful.