[ale] Ghost for Linux

[Brian MacLeod]

Ooo...PXE boot for imaging.  I'll have to experiment with that.  I
shouldn't be too far from being able to do this, now that most of our
machines have GRUB already on the boot sectors of the hard drives.

Currently, we use a second "hidden" partition to store a Windows 98
"network boot disk" designed from the tools at http://www.nu2.nu.  We
install GRUB to be able to select boot partitions, and its config file
stays on the 98 partition.  When the Windows 98 partition is selected,
it automatically connects to a Linux SAMBA server which has the the
images as well as the imaging software, which it kicks off thanks to a
CSV text file that contains the MAC addresses of the machines as well as
what they should be named, and what image file matches the name.
Twiddling the GRUB file remotely and forcing the machine to reboot
rebuilds the machine to the pristine state.

One hack could be to make GRUB pull the disk image via TFTP and boot it,
but I haven't had time to muck with that.  But definitely sounds like
something that should be able to be done, Linux or not.

Brian
---
Brian MacLeod
Computer Service Specialist III
Gwinnett University Center Technology Services
678-407-5304

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On 
> Behalf Of Nathan J. Underwood
> Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 3:53 PM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: [ale] Ghost for Linux
> 
> Believe it or not, I've been trying to craft a way to ask 
> this without getting flamed for about 3 days.  In the past, 
> I've used ghost and / or drive image to do this, but I'm 
> getting tired of making nt bootdisks. 
> Here's the skinny:
> 
> what I have:
>   - for each 'type' (we have 3) of computer setup we have, 
> build an image, and store it on a central location 
> (currently, a linux server running samba)
>   - anytime there is a suspected software error, or we get a 
> new machine, boot the computer using an nt boot disk, and 
> re-image the machine using the DOS version of ghost over the 
> network (takes about 7 minutes, much faster than 
> troubleshooting).  Since all of the users profile data is 
> stored on the server, they just log in, and boom, they're up 
> and running
> 
> what I want:
>   - run a knoppix terminal server so that machines can boot 
> from the network (i.e. no need to carry around a bunch of 
> network boot disks, use pxe boot)
>   - when there is a suspected software problem, or we get a 
> new machine, boot the computer into linux over the network 
> into linux.  Run a *nix version of ghost / drive image / 
> whatever (I've tried one [can't remember the name, an ncurses 
> tool, but it was very slow, and created huge images, based on 
> dd])pull down the image, boot into doze (or whatever os that 
> machine was), and have the user back up and running.
> --
> registered linux user # 73046
> 
> Nathan J. Underwood
> Cyber Tech Cafe' <><
> http://www.cybertechcafe.net
> 
> Tom & JaVonn wrote:
> > 	
> > Anyone used g4l ?
> > 
> > Looking for a cheap or free way for clients to make images 
> of their hard drive to external USB drives, even if they're 
> NTFS format.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Tom
> > _______________________________________________
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