Ghost For Linux

[bgavin]

Does anybody know of an imaging product, similar to Symantec Ghost, for Linux?

I tried out G4L from Sourceforge, and it is a sorry piece of shit. Typical linux-head, make the damn thing clumsy, slow, and a zillion options. It got part way into imaging a modest 40gb drive and crapped out with a GZip "too big" error. Merde.

The Symantec product (under Win32) chokes on linux volumes. Ditto for BART-PE. I figured to use my DOS version of Ghost 8.3, but it chokes also. Googling for the error shows everybody else has the same problem.

You would think with the popularity of Linux, that somebody has an imaging program that is both fast and somewhat easy to use. G4L is neither.

I just finished a CentOS 5.2 installation with DJBDNS name servers and caching. Hoo boy... does this make web surfing fly along. I want to image the system for disaster recovery. I have the DJB build scripted, but it still takes forever to rebuild a new system from scratch.

[i4004]

Re: Ghost For Linux



"Supported File Systems
• FAT16/32, NTFS, Linux Ext2/Ext3, ReiserFS, Linux Swap
• Raw Images support for other partitions and corrupted file systems"

can be integrated to bartpe

[gdement]

Re: Ghost For Linux

I've done this before using the command 'dd'.
I don't remember the details, but there's web sites about how to do it.
You should be able to clone partitions or entire drives this way.

The top of this link shows how to clone entire drives, before it goes into something else about doing it over a network:
http://alma.ch/blogs/bahut/2005/02/w...loning-os.html
I imagine you can replace the 'if' and 'of' parameters with filenames.

And this is another link I had. There's more on google of course.
http://www.mckeay.net/2004/10/18/usi...to-clone-a-hd/


A long time ago I did this to clone a Windows install, and recently I used it to clone a linux drive. Worked fine both times.

[bgavin]

Re: Ghost For Linux

I have one experience with Acronis, and that was a bad experience. The stupid program couldn't even read its own backup files. Evidently it is version sensitive, and they only support two versions back.

I installed a 2nd hard disk into the linux machine specifically for ghosting. It is currently set up as FAT32, as I figured to use Ghost 8.3 for DOS. No-go.. it has some problem or other and chokes when it loads. This might be boot disk related, as I have it booting on a CD emulating a DOS hard drive. I will look into that further.

A member sent me a link to Clonezilla, which I did find from a Google search. He said it works for him, but also suffers linux-head-itis with an interface cluttered with a zillion options. I want a disk cloning utility, not Sendmail...

The project machine is only reachable from the public side through a hardware router that restricts access to ports 53 (dns) and 25 (smtp). The chances of somebody getting into it are pretty slim, so I'm not worried about somebody trashing it. I just like to have ghost images of my production systems for disaster recovery for the post-installation configuration.

[jpdoe]

Re: Ghost For Linux

I've used the acronis product a few times, and it seems to be quite good.
The recovery bootable cd the home version allows you to create presents a menu when booting, that allows you to use a "full version" or a "safe version".
I never remember which is which, but one of them boots a linux system. If I had to bet, I'd say it's the full version. So if you want linux compatibility, I guess that almost guarantees it.

But I almost don't face linux installs in the machines I repair, so I switched back to ghost32 running from a BartPE disk. It's incredibly fast when dealing with WinXP partitions.

PS1: Nowadays I'm weary of using DOS based utilities, specially those that access the hard disk directly. There's too many capacity limits involved. I think ghost32 over BartPE is better. You're using more recent drivers to access the hard disk that way.

PS2: I would be interested in hearing more success stories about the dd command regarding partition imaging. I don't use it because I fear it would work only if you recover the image onto the same disk, mantaining the same partition size. As far as I know, dd deals with blocks, while ghost and the acronis product deal with files.

[Wizard]

Re: Ghost For Linux

Caution:

Older version of acornis works well with IDE stuff, but with SATA in enchanced mode not detected and compatible mode is HORRIBLY slow (read HOURS). So I had to download trial version and finish the clone in lightning fast fashion under 1/2 hour on a 67 GB from 250GB to new 320GB and rebooted with a swap of SATA cable. Now all happy.

Cheers, Wizard

[i4004]

Re: Ghost For Linux

>The stupid program couldn't even read its own backup files. Evidently it is version sensitive, and they only support two versions back.

yeah, but that doesn't matter if you make a bart pe disc with a version you'll be using for both making and restoring image.

wizard, it doesn't even matter how well does it work with what if you make bart pe work for you; in that case it's using windows drivers so accessing different interfaces is not a problem.
i had a problem acronis 9 not recognizing my pata drives(that go thru jmicron controller on mobo).
acronis 11 in ubcd4win has no problems with it, and i would say not because it's new, but because it's using windows to access hardware(ubcd4win has drivers for many things..).
it also has no issues making images to usb hdds etc.

[gdement]

Re: Ghost For Linux

PS2: I would be interested in hearing more success stories about the dd command regarding partition imaging. I don't use it because I fear it would work only if you recover the image onto the same disk, mantaining the same partition size. As far as I know, dd deals with blocks, while ghost and the acronis product deal with files.

That's correct about dd, it doesn't deal with filesystems, just blocks of storage referenced by the name of the device. I think you can also reference partitions.

It works as long as the target is >= the source. They don't have to be identical drives. But the partition sizes won't grow/shrink like Ghost might be capable of doing.


Just to give more detail, I can think of 3 times I've used it. First was to clone a bootable floppy to an image file.
2nd time I was cloning a Windows install. The target was a similar size drive but not identical. I don't remember clearly what command I used but it was probably a full drive copy.

The last time I did it was to clone a linux install from a dying 4.5gb SCSI over to a 120GB ATA drive. It was an emergency and that's all I had. I ran the command as full drive-> full drive.
I just checked the partition layout on that machine. The 120gb has all the same partitions as the 4.5gb previously had, and apparently the rest of the space was left unallocated. It's been running for a few months since then.

I may clone it down to a 20gb soon, but since the drive will be getting smaller that's uncharted territory for me. Hopefully cloning by partition will work.

[jpdoe]

Re: Ghost For Linux

Thanks for the information, gdement.
It makes sense that full copy via dd works, because that way the partition table and the actual partition sizes remain the same as the original.
And the universal availability of dd makes it perfect for emergency data recovery.

A couple of years back I looked up what open source ghost replacements were available. But as usual I can't find where I saved what I found.
There's an interesting option in the parted command:
------------------------------------
2.4.2 cp

— Command: cp [from-device] from-number to-number

Copies the file system on the partition from-number to partition to-number, deleting the original contents of the destination partition.

An optional device parameter, from-device can be given, which specifies which device the source partition is on.

Supported file systems:

ext2, ext3 (provided the destination partition is larger than the source partition)
fat16, fat32
linux-swap (equivalent to mkswap on destination partition)
reiserfs (if libreiserfs is installed)
Example:

(parted) cp /dev/hdb 2 3

Copy partition 2 of /dev/hdb (i.e., /dev/hdb2) to partition on 3, on the device Parted was loaded with, destroying the original contents of partition
------------------------------------

but use it with care, because I've never tried it out.

[gdement]

Re: Ghost For Linux

...
(parted) cp /dev/hdb 2 3

Copy partition 2 of /dev/hdb (i.e., /dev/hdb2) to partition on 3, on the device Parted was loaded with, destroying the original contents of partition
------------------------------------

but use it with care, because I've never tried it out.

Looks interesting. Might be perfect for what I need to do, thanks.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Ghost For Linux

Does anybody know of an imaging product, similar to Symantec Ghost, for Linux?

I tried out G4L from Sourceforge, and it is a sorry piece of shit. Typical linux-head, make the damn thing clumsy, slow, and a zillion options. It got part way into imaging a modest 40gb drive and crapped out with a GZip "too big" error. Merde.

The Symantec product (under Win32) chokes on linux volumes. Ditto for BART-PE. I figured to use my DOS version of Ghost 8.3, but it chokes also. Googling for the error shows everybody else has the same problem.

You would think with the popularity of Linux, that somebody has an imaging program that is both fast and somewhat easy to use. G4L is neither.

I just finished a CentOS 5.2 installation with DJBDNS name servers and caching. Hoo boy... does this make web surfing fly along. I want to image the system for disaster recovery. I have the DJB build scripted, but it still takes forever to rebuild a new system from scratch.

Your problem may be caused by wrong BIOS HDD size settings. It's a good idea to make sure that the BIOS HDD size settings are set to "Auto".

It's possible that your BIOS don't support the HDD, when imaging software gives you an error.

[bgavin]

Re: Ghost For Linux

Thanks for the tip, but that is not the problem. Not unless half a dozen machines are all bad and my virtual machines are all bad.

All machines always run as AUTO, all pass partition diagnostics for correct configuration.