CentOS

I inherited a two node four disk 1u Centos 5 server system which I am new to managing (two disk logical volume per node). I did a fresh install with Centos 7 on the first node and installed updates and required additional software.

All is running beautifully.

I seek advice on cloning this node to the second node so I don't have to do another fresh install and repeat the rather lengthy steps I did the first time.

Any suggestions or "recipe" for duplicating nodes? Or perhaps I don't want "duplicate" as such. The server is intended primarily for streaming media files.

Yes. Don't. It's more work than it's worth.

Look at using kickstart files to perform installs. Those let you customise what gets installed, what filesystems are created where, what users are created and their passwords.

Look at configuration management products like puppet/chef/ansible/salt to do post-install steps like install and configure the packages you want.

All this lot together also makes for relatively easy reinstalls in the future should you ever suffer from hardware failure or nasty events like compromise.

Thanks for sparing me unnecessary headache ....

I have been an Ubuntu fan for years for my Kodi installation and related. I inherited an old server (2012 time) unknowingly with a bunch of old equipment for storage and eventual disposal. Well, I finally got around to it. And to my surprise a Centos 5 server was all nicely boxed (Xeon L5430 based system).
I thought, what the heck, let's see if it fires up - and it did! I knew the operating system was outdated and I didn't trust security on my network, so I did a bit of research to see if I can do a fresh install and bring it up to date. If you studied Spanish and Italian - that's how I felt with Centos and Ubuntu. So similar, but not.

But finally I had the old server running Centos 7 fully updated, on my network and secure with lots of TB of space. I added all sorts of utilities so I can connect easily with Windows (not easily, but easy) with Samba and other tools and started media servers that just worked.

The server has a second motherboard an another two cpu slots, memory and disks available that I will be outfitting in the coming days when I have time (after midnight). But I do want to avoid having to do a fresh install on that node. I don't know if I'll cluster yet, but suspect I will at least clone the two using your advice.

Most importantly - I am now becoming acquainted with Centos - and I like it.

Thanks,

A CEO who doesn't tell his team he can code let alone install hardware.