There are many good disk cloners out there, but all of the ones I know of require a Quartz connection -- and so they can't be used remotely. I have written this wrapper around asr(8) that copies the Startup Volume to the Volume whose path is specified on the command line (if the path has spaces, you need to quote it). It then deletes those objects on the clone that will keep it from booting/working properly (much like Carbon Copy Cloner, but with a few additions such as my own user Cache).
Read the rest of the hint for the script...
#!/bin/sh
if [ `whoami` != "root" ]; then
echo "You must be root to use this!"
exit 1
fi
TGT="$1"
if [ "$TGT" = "" ]; then
echo "Usage: $0 target_volume"
exit 2
fi
logger -t backup "Backup started"
date
asr -source / -target "$TGT" -erase -verbose
vsdbutil -a "$TGT"
rm -rf "$TGT"/var/db/volinfo.database
rm -rf "$TGT"/var/db/BootCache.playlist
rm -rf "$TGT"/var/db/NetworkInterfaces.xml
rm -rf "$TGT"/var/db/PowerManagement.xml
rm -rf "$TGT"/var/db/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.xml
rm -rf "$TGT"/var/vm/swapfile*
rm -rf "$TGT"/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist
rm -rf "$TGT"/Library/Caches/*
rm -rf "$TGT"/System/Library/Caches/*
rm -rf "$TGT"/System/Library/Extensions.kextcache
rm -rf "$TGT"/System/Library/Extensions.mkext
rm -rf "$TGT"/TheVolumeSettingsFolder
rm -rf "$TGT"/Users/ataraxia/Library/Caches/*
logger -t backup "Backup completed"
date
[robg adds: You'll need to make this executable with chmod 755 scriptname, and as noted, it must be run as root via sudo. I have not tested this script!]
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040917131403637