There are many applications designed to create a system image: for creating your own system with your favorite pre-installed applications, preparing an image of a game server easily mountable, duplicating a fine-tuned server, or simply saving your system…

The process is really quite simple and may be done by anyone who follows the procedures carefully:

You must first create a data disk with a maximum of 3 GB (this limit is temporary). This can be done fom the disk creation interface in your hosting account. If you do not have enough disk space, you can purchase more during the operation.

Simply attach your new disk to the server to be copied (the one that you want to make an image of).

To create the image of your system and copy it to your newly-created data disk, you must first use the UNIX command: dd

The syntax of the command requires a bit of attention however. Here is an example that we will examine in a second:

dd if=/dev/xvda of=/dev/xvdc conv=sync

The parametr if corresponds to the path to the source (the system that we want to copy), while of is the path to the destination disk (the data disk where you want to copy the data to that you just created).

Return to your disk management interface on Gandi's website in your hosting account, and remove the disk from your server that you have copied the disk image on.

On the Gandi.net control panel, you are now able to set a kernel on a disk, take the concerned data disk, then, apply a appropriate kernel to the image you have created.

For example, take a data disk on the conrol panel that you want to transform in a system/image disk :

Use the link to modify the parameters or informations of this disk, you will find an option at the bottom of the page to change the disk type into system :

You will gain access to the advanced mode like on a system disk :

Now all that remains is to create a new server. The only difference will be in the choice of your system, as you now have an extra option: use your custom-made image!