How can I dd over a network - and will it solve my problem?

Several months back (maybe it was only weeks) I deleted all the images from one of my linodes. Yeah, it was accidental! Everything important gets backed up - so I've had no real reason to fret. And so far, it's stayed up and running. At the time I did that, I found an article in these discussion forums on using dd to image and restore your linode. I didn't have time to take action then but I'd like to resolve this problem now. Can anyone point me at that post or repost how to dd to a remote system? I can't seem to find it.

My idea is this - and it may be bogus so let me know

1) Switch runlevels to something that makes everything read only

2) image the partition to a remote location

3) shutdown the system and create a new image on the linode

4) copy the image back to the linode

5) reboot the linode

Will it work?

Since everything is backed up, the issue really is the time it will take to rebuild the system with the correct versions and all the necessary applications (could take days/weeks of watching errors fall through).

Any other ideas?