Really old /proc weirdness?

[Michael ODonnell]

> your /proc weirdness, if triviata of that detail is significant to
> your system reproduction, I'd probably break down, blow away the
> (non-boot) files on the new server, tar everything over from the
> old one, and re-ip/re-hostname.

If exact (warts and all) reproduction of the existing system is important
then my thoughts were along those same lines (I favor rsync, FWIW).

Actually, if the systems have the same disk HW my first approach would
be a straight dd copy.  I'd boot from something like a live DVD to
have a place to stand during the process, though I've occasionally done
this sort of cloning in-situ with judicious use of busybox and rsync.
If you clone the boot files don't forget to re-GRUB.

> My guess is that different defaults are in play here.  That is,
> the defaults settings changed over the years, which were maintained
> through the updates on the old system, but the newer system has
> newer defaults from of newer install media.  Of course, this might
> not be about defaults, but maybe just some obscure settings you
> missed deep in the guts of /etc that some one tweaked.  Also,
> it might be an environment varialbe set in either /etc or some
> user home dir.

Yup - further motivation to clone instead of reconstruct if exact
reproduction is your mandate.  Of course, a cloned system won't give
you That Fresh Feeling as you'll always wonder how much b0rken stuff
and bitrot you replicated along with the good...