From AdminWiki

rsync

rsync is the perfect tool when you need to synchronize two files or file trees, be it just your homedirectory or a whole server. rsync can handle that.

cookbook

Migrating a server

To migrate a server,

rsync -aH --numeric-ids -x --delete / <additional mountpoints> <target>

usually does the trick. This should result in an exact copy of the source tree.

Minimum working config

log file = /var/log/rsyncd.log
pid file = /var/run/rsyncd/rsyncd.pid
use chroot = yes

[bluewhite]
path = /path/to/distro
read only = yes
list = yes
transfer logging = yes