Knoppix saves my company money!

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01-09-2003, 03:09 AM
Stonent

Knoppix saves my company money!

Because of the simplicity of it and the netboot option, we are able to use Knoppix to clone computers without having to purchase a Norton Ghost license for each system. Here is how I use Knoppix on a daily basis.

We have several computers that are configured identically for the product that we sell. So I start one "set" up. One acts as the knoppix boot server and the others net boot off of it. Then I connect a long ethernet cable to a "fresh" set that has not had the OS or our special software loaded yet and net boot them off of the knoppix server.

Then one by one I execute a command like this to clone them.
On the machine I want to copy from:
1. Open 2 root windows
2. start xload on one of them
3. cat /dev/hda | gzip -9 | nc -l -p 5030

On the machine I copy to:

1. nc 192.168.0.1 5030 | gunzip > /dev/hda (192.168.0.1 is the ip of whatever machine I am cloning)

When the xload drops down to zero, then I know it is done. I can typically start about 2 or 3 clients to copy them.

For Windows 9x systems. I do a format c: /s from dos and then untar a tarred backup that I made using knoppix.

Since Knoppix auto configures the hardware, I don't have to mess with making boot floppies or keeping track of them.
01-09-2003, 08:28 AM
aay

Very cool!
01-09-2003, 10:36 AM
tiddler

Does this just work with fat32 partitions? Or would this work with any winXP or win2K? NTFS

I think it would, but I just want to check...
01-09-2003, 09:58 PM
Dave_Bechtel

--If you're doing a low-level data dump (dd) - it should work with ANYTHING. But with NTFS you never know. Try it on a spare HD and post results...

Quote:

Originally Posted by tiddler

Does this just work with fat32 partitions? Or would this work with any winXP or win2K? NTFS

I think it would, but I just want to check...
01-09-2003, 10:02 PM
Dave_Bechtel

Re: Knoppix saves my company money!

--That is WayCool. I love hearing about stuff like this... netcat is way more advanced than stuff I would normally attempt. I prolly would have used tar or something. :oops:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stonent

Because of the simplicity of it and the netboot option, we are able to use Knoppix to clone computers without having to purchase a Norton Ghost license for each system. Here is how I use Knoppix on a daily basis.

We have several computers that are configured identically for the product that we sell. So I start one "set" up. One acts as the knoppix boot server and the others net boot off of it. Then I connect a long ethernet cable to a "fresh" set that has not had the OS or our special software loaded yet and net boot them off of the knoppix server.

Then one by one I execute a command like this to clone them.
On the machine I want to copy from:
1. Open 2 root windows
2. start xload on one of them
3. cat /dev/hda | gzip -9 | nc -l -p 5030

On the machine I copy to:

1. nc 192.168.0.1 5030 | gunzip > /dev/hda (192.168.0.1 is the ip of whatever machine I am cloning)

When the xload drops down to zero, then I know it is done. I can typically start about 2 or 3 clients to copy them.

For Windows 9x systems. I do a format c: /s from dos and then untar a tarred backup that I made using knoppix.

Since Knoppix auto configures the hardware, I don't have to mess with making boot floppies or keeping track of them.
01-10-2003, 02:32 AM
stonent

copyin

You can do the cat /dev/hda thing with ntfs, but you can't untar because Knoppix can't write to windows 2000 drives.

For some reason, copying an EXT2 drive with knoppix takes much longer. For that I type mount and read the pid of the auto mounter and kill -9 it. Then umount everything that is /dev/hdsomething or /dev/sdasomething

Also this will make the drives with identcal partitions so if you are going from a 20gb to a 40gb you'll have to make another partition or resize it using fips or something like that.

If you want to make a compressed image of the drive you'd first want to dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda the source drive before loading anything on it so that the unused space will compress very well. Then remote mount a file system (samba or nfs) and
cat /dev/hda | gzip -9 > /mnt/remotefs/blah.img.gz (something like that, the > may not be necessary)

If you already have a full drive that you want to duplicate do something like dd if=/dev/zero of=/junkfile.tmp that will fill the empty space with zeros and then delete the junkfile.tmp after it dies from a full filesystem.
01-10-2003, 11:34 AM
hamatoma

I copied it to knoppixwiki

I have copied your very interessting info into http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.ph...ationUeberNetz
and make the translation into German.

I hope you like it.
Hamatoma
01-10-2003, 06:15 PM
Dave_Bechtel

Re: copyin

>> If you want to make a compressed image of the drive you'd first want to dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda the drive so that the unused space will compress very well. Then remote mount a file system...

--Do you realize what you just said there? That ***wipes out the entire drive,*** making it pointless to back up...

Quote:

Originally Posted by stonent

You can do the cat /dev/hda thing with ntfs, but you can't untar because Knoppix can't write to windows 2000 drives.

For some reason, copying an EXT2 drive with knoppix takes much longer. For that I type mount and read the pid of the auto mounter and kill -9 it. Then umount everything that is /dev/hdsomething or /dev/sdasomething

Also this will make the drives with identcal partitions so if you are going from a 20gb to a 40gb you'll have to make another partition or resize it using fips or something like that.

If you want to make a compressed image of the drive you'd first want to dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda the drive so that the unused space will compress very well. Then remote mount a file system (samba or nfs) and
cat /dev/hda | gzip -9 > /mnt/remotefs/blah.img.gz (something like that, the > may not be necessary)

If you already have a full drive that you want to duplicate do something like dd if=/dev/zero of=/junkfile.tmp that will fill the empty space with zeros and then delete the junkfile.tmp after it dies from a full filesystem.
01-10-2003, 06:34 PM
stonent

Re: copyin

I should clarify. I meant to say do that before putting anything on the drive. Otherwise you'll have to zero out the other space using the other method i mentioned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dave_Bechtel

>> If you want to make a compressed image of the drive you'd first want to dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda the drive so that the unused space will compress very well. Then remote mount a file system...

--Do you realize what you just said there? That ***wipes out the entire drive,*** making it pointless to back up...

Quote:

Originally Posted by stonent

You can do the cat /dev/hda thing with ntfs, but you can't untar because Knoppix can't write to windows 2000 drives.

For some reason, copying an EXT2 drive with knoppix takes much longer. For that I type mount and read the pid of the auto mounter and kill -9 it. Then umount everything that is /dev/hdsomething or /dev/sdasomething

Also this will make the drives with identcal partitions so if you are going from a 20gb to a 40gb you'll have to make another partition or resize it using fips or something like that.

If you want to make a compressed image of the drive you'd first want to dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda the drive so that the unused space will compress very well. Then remote mount a file system (samba or nfs) and
cat /dev/hda | gzip -9 > /mnt/remotefs/blah.img.gz (something like that, the > may not be necessary)

If you already have a full drive that you want to duplicate do something like dd if=/dev/zero of=/junkfile.tmp that will fill the empty space with zeros and then delete the junkfile.tmp after it dies from a full filesystem.
01-11-2003, 04:03 PM
Flibble

I sure wouldn't have liked to come into this thread at the wrong point as a newbie. ;>

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