Installation - image of anther machine

[Frank Bax]

Chris Henderson wrote:
> I'm installing OpenBSD 4.3-release on a new machine. Rather than
> installing everything from scratch, I'd like to take an image of
> another machine. This will save me a lot of time configuring
> everything by hand from scratch. The things I want in the new machine
> are the things that the old machine has, like: packages, compiled from
> ports Java & opera, users, .rc files, any /etc changes.
> 
> Is this possible? Thanks.


I did something like this a couple of times.  After reading FAQ 
14.1,14.2,14.3,14.6,14.7 and 14.8 (maybe more); I physically install 
both disks in the same computer; then boot into single user mode.  I 
used cpio to transfer system from one disk to another; then moved new 
disk back to new system.  I've read that a disk's geometry can be 
different in different computers, which can cause problems; but I've not 
encountered this issue.

Test the procedure first (perhaps more than once) with two disks that 
can be trashed; in case you copy the wrong way the first time.