On 2006-08-18 04:30:56 +0100, "armistej" <JArmistead@mail.com> said:

> Hi
>
> We have a numbe of ageing SunOS boxes (Sparcstation IPX and ELC) which
> are required for legacy support purposes.
> [...]
>
> dd /if=/dev/sd0c /of=blah.img

This will not be great unless you know the exact partitioning of the
disk (in other words: have it written down) *and* you can obtain
replacement disks which are exactly the same size, for ever.

> Maybe I am best just to dump or tar the files back and forward, but
> since this is a system boot disk, rather than just any old data disk,
> I'm a bit more wary because obviously certain key parts of the SunOS
> environment need to be in the right places for the boot ROM and SunOS
> boot loader to do their jobs properly.

Yes, use dump on all the filesystems. There is mild fiddliness (which
I forget the details of - was it stuff in /usr/mdec?) to get the boot
blocks in the right place but this should be soluble.

More interesting, perhaps, is how you do a recovery from cold metal -
do you have install media etc? I'd practice one on a real box before
it becomes necessary to do so. You know this I'm sure.

--tim