Installation - image of anther machine

[Josh Grosse]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 04:28:10PM -0700, Chris Henderson wrote:
> At the moment I have a Vista computer where I would like to dump the
> OpenBSD image.
> The OpenBSD box has only one sinlge partiton (/) of 80GB. I can ssh to
> the OBSD box via putty.
> But I don't have samba running. How can I dump the image to the Vista
> box? If this is not possible,

As with the myriad choices available to you for backup and restore, you
could install and configure samba, or, you could install and configure
sharity-light.

So now you've backed up.  How do you plan to restore?  Obviously, your
restoring system will have to be an already-running OpenBSD system with 
either of these two packages installed.  You won't be able to use the 
ramdisk kernel for restore.    

There are alternatives to using Microsoft Networking... which I will 
offer, but first this gives me an opportunity to discuss backup/restore 
situations where 3rd party package installs are *required* to conduct a 
restore.  When you do this, your restoration technique must not overlay 
the OpenBSD system you are running.   So if you choose one of these methods,
you must consider how you will restore your running system.  There are many
possible ways to do this, but *all* the choices may be beyond a newbie's 
skill set to execute.  Options include configuring the rescue system on 
an unused partition letter, or restoring into partitions which will have
partition letters altered after restore completes, or even installing the
rescue system on a USB memory stick or USB hard drive, assuming your new 
system's BIOS can boot a USB device.  Regardless of the technique, all of 
them require a high level of administrative skill.  In particular, skill 
with manually installing boot blocks.

Alternatives to using MS Networking merely require installing non-Microsoft 
networking software on Vista.  e.g.: an FTP server, an NFS server, or an SSH 
server.  

> I can install OBSD 4.3-release on my new machine and NFS moount the
> new machine to the old one
> and then dump the image there.

Your restore would then require the same level of skill as mentioned for
third party packages -- you cannot overlay a running OpenBSD system during
restore.  The ramdisk kernel does not include NFS.  

And if you do this, why is Vista even involved?  Just back up your running 
system over the network to your new system.  But, your new system will still
need to be a running OpenBSD system, as described above.  The only networking
tool included with the ramdisk kernel is the FTP client.  
 
> Also, my old machine has only one partition (/) and I am planning to
> have multiple partitions (/, /var/, /tmp, /usr/ etc.) in my new
> machine - is this going to cause any issue with the dump and restore?

These tools are designed to back up and restore OpenBSD partitions.  They 
can back up and restore subsets of partitions, so you could still use them, 
but it might complicate your procedures or possibly confuse you; if you've
never used them, practice with them before committing yourself. 

How would *I* do this?  Assuming your new system is a single-hard-drive
system, I would install OpenBSD on a USB device, and boot it, then conduct
the restore to hard drive, keeping the Vista machine entirely out of the
scenario.  

I might use Vista as my backup server for the future, though, as long as 
offline storage (optical, or external USB drive) were available too.