[mdlug] is it possible to dd a remote & live drive?

[Aaron Kulkis]

Clinton Weiss wrote:
> I have a server which I can not physically reach at this time, and I 
> need to run some major upgrades on it.  I've been a bit lax and hesitant 
> to do this, since I don't have access to the machine's keyboard/screen 
> if something were to go wrong.  I currently access the machine via ssh.
> 
> What I would like to do is create a dd image of the server's drive and 
> work on the things I need to change in a virtual machine.  This way, if 
> I screw something up, I'm not hosing a live server.
> 
> Can anyone here give me some advice or recommendation on this, if it is 
> at all possible?

If you can mount a partition, you can dd it.
Use the same block device (/dev/drive_and_partition_spec)
as you would to mount it

If not sure, use the output from the df command, or
cat /etc/mtab.