My coda server is having hardware problems (a P6-200 from 1996!), and
I'm about to upgrade it to a PIII-933 with a disk that's only 2 years
old.  The system is NetBSD 1.6.2.

I have LOG in a file, vnconfiged, DATA in a raw partition:

  # LOG is really a vnd to /usr/CODA/LOG
  rvm_log="/dev/LOG"
  #rvm_log="/usr/CODA/LOG"

  rvm_data="/dev/DATA"
  rvm_data_length="136314880"

  rc.local: vnconfig vnd0 /usr/CODA/LOG

data is in /vicepa.

The machine crashes on heavy access (no sw changes; just started doing
this recently), so I've been rsyncing bits off.  I've dd'd DATA and
LOG to files on a new disk, and rsync'd /vicepa.

I know I should have data, log, and vicepa on 3 spindles, but the new
machine will have only one disk.  (Plus, I care about reliability far
more than speed.)

I believe that names in /vicepa are referenced in RVM, not inode
number, and that I should be able to just put LOG and DATA in vnds and
use them as partitions.  The comments at
http://coda.wikidev.net/Optimizing_Coda_6.x make me believe that
migrating rvm files and vicepa will work.

Is there any real benefit to making LOG and DATA be bona fide
partitions on the disk, rather than partitions backed by files?

This server was initialized a really long time ago, perhaps 1998 to
2000 or so, which is a testament to codasrv format stability.

I suppose I could dump/restore RVM using norton, and that might clean
up some latent issues in the files.

I could also make backups and restore them.  One thing I'm not clear
on is that restoring backups seems to make a new readonly volume, and
I don't see how to turn that back into a rw volume like I want.  Is
there a script to take a backup file and a target volume name (e.g
u.gdt) and create it replicated/rw on the server?  Or do I have to
rsync from the read-only restored volume?  and then what about acls?

    Thanks,
    Greg