TIP Imaging with Ghost for Unix

From Gentoo Linux Wiki

[edit] Introduction

G4U is a small BSD system for the purpose of copying partitions or entire disk images with gzip compression. It is very basic and very easy to use. A current problem is that it doesn't support multicasting and requires the user to be physically at the machine in question.

I see potential for correction of these problems with were you to adapt the LTSP guide and somehow write alternate startup scripts to the Unix File System on which it was hosted. If you used BSD this should be easy, but I use Linux.

[edit] Acquiring G4U

Ghost for Unix (which has no relation to Norton Ghost) can be found here: http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/#reqs

• Single Floppy Ver 1.17

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/g4u-1.17.fs.zip

• CD Ver 2.0
  • Support for newer machines with SATA and USB Keyboards

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/g4u-2.0.iso.zip

[edit] Preparing Server for Imaging

You will need an ftp server. I recommend mod_ftpd and vsftpd for *nix, and FileZilla for Win.

Any user with write privileges will do, but unless otherwise specified, g4u assumes the user install.

[edit] Preparing Clients for Imaging

*nix

If you are on a *nix system you should write blank bits to the "empty" space on your filesystems:

 for FS in "/boot/ / /home/"
 do
    cat /dev/zero > ${FS}nullfile.tmp
    rm ${FS}nullfile.tmp
 done

As long as your kernel is of the "kitchen sink" type, you should be able to deploy your image across multiple hardware types.

Win

On WinXP it is rumored that you can use the microsoft sysprep utility just before the imaging process and you will then be able to deploy the image across multiple hardware types. I have had no such success with Windows 2000.

[edit] Duplication

Boot up with the G4U disk.

Unless you are using BSD you won't be able to use the ability to copy slices (partitions). If you are using BSD, then check out the official howto.

USER=install # this name is assumed if you don't specify
IPADDR=10.0.0.11 # the IP of the ftp server
IMAGENAME=lab_dell_gx270 # the name of the file

 uploaddisk ${USER}@${IPADDR} ${IMAGENAME}.gz

 slurpdisk ${USER}@${IPADDR} ${IMAGENAME}.gz

• a given image 'myimg.gz' will be searched in the homedirectory of the $USER. USER defaults to 'install'