Recycling working gentoo install on vmware?

[xlefr]

I have set up a Gentoo box. I want to copy the entire tree onto my vmware linux machine. I'll probably be booting it up with the Gentoo LiveCD.

What is the best command for preserving the order and permissions of things - and not copying the /dev tree and things like that?

Basically, I need to copy the contents of a partition. Is there a way to dump a partition onto a remote computer, and is that what I should do?

Input much appreciated.
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(Disclaimer: I browsed through the FAQs, I searched and I read the official docs. I didn't find anything. And I am very sorry.)

[BonezTheGoon]

Anytime you want to drop a partition's contents into a new disk (physical or virtual) I'd recommend Ghost (retail product from Symantec/Norton) for the job.

Regards,
BonezTheGoon

[xlefr]

Thanks, but Ghost is slightly overkill, I think.

Some kind of permissions-keeping network transfer utility would be the shiznitz, actually. Anyone? ;)
_________________
(Disclaimer: I browsed through the FAQs, I searched and I read the official docs. I didn't find anything. And I am very sorry.)

[PowerFactor]

Copying your root filesystem is much easier if you boot the machine with a livecd. That way you don't have to wory about excluding devfs, proc, and the various tmpfs filesystems that are mounted when the system is live. the probelm with just excluding /dev is that there are some actual device files in there on the disk that are hidden by devfs. I don't know how necessary thows are for normal operation but you need them if you ever chroot into that partiton.

Once you boot the system you can use tar or cpio in conjunction with ssh to copy the files, assuming you vmware host is on another machine. Just be sure to use the apropriate options to preserve permissions.

[xlefr]

beautiful

i heart you
_________________
(Disclaimer: I browsed through the FAQs, I searched and I read the official docs. I didn't find anything. And I am very sorry.)