image

[Chakravarthi]

Hi all,

Is there any tool to take image dump of one machine and replicate to other machines???

i heard about ghost image, i guess this is for windows operating system. actually i have to perform linux installation on 100+ m/c i'm looking for a simplier solution other than n/w and kickstart installations.

thanks
chakri

[Mike Jagdis]

Possibly http://sourceforge.net/projects/systemimager ?

[Balaji N]

if the hardware and the configs are going to be same, dd?
-balaji

[Steven E. Protter]

Actually Norton Ghost does a pretty good job.

Works great on Linux. Will even use a windows network if your boot cd/disk has appropriate drivers set up. I use Intel cards, which makes it easier.

SEP

[xyko_1 · Accepted solution]

Hi Chakravarthi,

Some time ago I have posted a message that may solve your problem.

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=710186

Hope it helps you also.

Regards,
Xyko

[Chakravarthi]

hi balaji,

i would like to know how to use dd command to take dump of the system image.

regards
chakri

[xyko_1]

Hi Chakri,

I think only dd will not be a solution for you.

You said that you want to install a lot of similar pcs with one single configuration. So, you will need a media with a complete working system that can be booted and a media with the image that will be installed on the target pc. I think the best way to do that is to save the image on a server and work with a distro on a bootable cd like knoppix (or kurumin as I posted. kurumin do a very good job to me becase it has partimage inside). You will boot from cd, configure the network, define your disk partitions and "burn" the disk with the images that you have saved on the server.

The other point is that you will have to have a boot image recorded on a diskete or a way to put it on MBR. To have it on a diskete is simple and you may do that when you are doing the first installation. If you prefer to have it on MBR you must copy the mbr of the first instalation using sfdisk to a diskete and record the mbr using sfdisk.

Hope it helps.
Xyko

[Stf]

Syntax of dd command :

# dd if=/dev/dsk/ of=/dev/rmt/ bs=1024

if=input file
of=output file
bs=block suze

Stf ;-)

[TwoProc]

I do the "dd" route on systems that don't have hardware mirroring (see dd command above), but I actually copy to a disk, instead of to tape.
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=128K .
If you've got hardware mirroing (HP's DL380 has the Compaq Array controller) you can actually mirror those systems easily...
A) Grab a mirrored disk from a good known source system. Grab the disk HOT, and LEAVE THE SOURCE MACHINE UP!!!. Put a blank in here to keep system airflow correct, or, put in a new disk from some other system that's OK to overwrite - system will start to mirror to the new disk you just put in...
B) Boot a target system that's exactly like your source machine.
C) Interrupt the boot process and clear out ALL disk definitions in the array controller.
D) Put the disk from A) in slot zero.
E) Boot it, and when given the following choices, tell it not to remove the unfound disk from the system (choice 2),and then answer 1) afterward to let it source the system from newly inserted disk. You should see data flowing from the disk in disk 0 to disk 1.
All instructions above assume DL3X0 system with the Compaq Array controller...

That's it, your system will come up, stop it and go into single user mode - change the server name, the IP address /etc/sysconfig/network and /etc/sysconfig/networking_scripts/ifcfg_eth0, etc...

and reboot it again in the default init level.

Wait until the system finishes syncing drives.

Put the original drive zero back where it belongs (hot! don't come down), and put your originally intended drive zero where it belongs. While this isn't totally necessary -it helps to keep your disk serial numbers straight with the system serial numbers - for support call in reasons only.

[Don_89]

Just curious here,

Why isn't kickstart a option?

As for Ghost, we've have issues restoring large (10GB) images on HP hardware.