[ale] Ghost for Linux

[Christopher Fowler]

RedBoot is nice

On Tue, 2004-09-28 at 16:10, Brian MacLeod wrote:
> 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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