Clone a ext4 partition from a computer to another over the network, even if they have different sizes, as long as the filesystem contents fit in the destination partition. UUIDs and labels are copied, so bootloader and mount configurations do not need to be updated.

Clone ext4 partition over network to a maybe different sized partition

# Source computer commands (run these first):
$ sudo mount -o ro /dev/sda2 /mnt
$ socat -dd -u EXEC:"sudo tar -C /mnt --acls --xattrs --numeric-owner -vcf - ." TCP-LISTEN:2212

# Destination computer commands (the UUIDs and labels can be obtained with lsblk on the source computer).
# 192.168.0.2 is the IP address of the source computer:
$ sudo mkfs.ext4 -U <source filesystem UUID> -L <source filesystem label> /dev/nvme0n1p2
# Set partition UUID with fdisk (enter expert mode)
$ sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 /mnt
$ socat -dd -u TCP:192.168.0.2:2212 EXEC:"sudo tar -C /mnt --overwrite --numeric-owner -vpxf -"