Drive imaging in Ubuntu/Linux

[Cristatus]

I've never used disk imaging software, such as Norton Ghost or anything similar, and was wondering what's available in the Linux/Ubuntu environment. I need something that will make an exact copy of the computer, and
then be able to revoer it as quick as possible.

(I'm using 8.04, if that makes any difference)

Thanks

(C)

 

[cmv]

dd: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)
g4l: http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l
CloneZilla: http://www.clonezilla.org/

I've used dd but it is very basic. So basic it might seem to not be what you are wanting but in some cases it is (*). The other two projects are closer to what you might be looking for.

* The main problem with dd is that the copy may in fact be too exact.

 

[tRaptor]

Many utilities use PartImage. Personally I really like PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost). http://ping.windowsdream.com/

Works great with many operating systems.

 

[Netopia]

I'm going to have to investigate PING and Clonezilla! Last time I checked out g4l, (a couple of years) it did sector by sector copies and ended up with images as large as the drives it was imagine. Untenable! These new generation of programs look good!

Joe

 

[degibson]

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb

Ultimate disk cloning tool.

Edit: Don't actually do the above, unless you know what you're doing and want to do that.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: degibson
dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb

Ultimate disk cloning tool.

Edit: Don't actually do the above, unless you know what you're doing and want to do that.

Yeah, for an EXACT copy of hda to hdb, nothing beats dd, but you must be sure that hdb is at least as big as hda.

For what the OP wants, the low-level tool would be partimage. Anything else, such as PING or CloneZilla, is just to make partimage a little more user-friendly and manageable, and the actual image copy is still done by partimage.

 

[tRaptor]

Originally posted by: Netopia
I'm going to have to investigate PING and Clonezilla! Last time I checked out g4l, (a couple of years) it did sector by sector copies and ended up with images as large as the drives it was imagine. Untenable! These new generation of programs look good!

Joe

If I recall, Clonezilla is good as well. The best apps now only do bit to bit if they dont know what kinda partition it is.

Personally I liked the way PING did things. Simply setup a network share with the ping folders (from the zip download) and then use the boot cd. Some of the menu items are a bit confusing, but just use their walk through. I think you can also set it up for network boot.

I have used ping at work quite a bit. I was frustrated since the school I work for never had ghost, although after seeing what ghosts licensing was like I can see why. (License for every machine you image) So I started looking for alternates. I had a hell of a time with it until one of the guys I work with told me to search for "open source ghost". I admit to failing at google for this.

For the record we only have about 30 windows machines which is why they where able to get away with not having a clone solution.

The organization I work for has recently been looking at the use of FOG as a Ghost replacement. Its a nice piece of software that does imaging, inventory, ect. Not really a home solution since it needs a separate machine or VM running linux. Check it out, its very nice and well developed. http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/

 

[Netopia]

Although I'll probably end up using one of these, after giving them a quick once over I have to say that so far I've found NOTHING as easy as Ghost. The Ghost interface is nicer and more intuitive, and you can drop images on any local (FAT/FAT32) drive without special drivers or on any SMB network share (without having to have special files or folders on the receiving end).

OTOH... FREE is a huge advantage! Plus the old version of Ghost that I use (7.5) doesn't seem to be able to recreate a BOOTABLE Linux disk, so that's another strike against it.

Joe

 

[Cristatus]

Well, at the moment, I'm running Ubuntu, with ext3 partitions IIRC, but I also have computers using Windows XP, so I need any program to be able to handle NTFS/FAT as well. NTFS because that's what my Windows machines are, but FAT because that's what it'll be stored on, but I doubt that's an issue. I have read this thread once, but I haven't done any further research, once I do get that time though, I will do some research.

Thanks guys

(C)