Using knoppix to get past the good old DOS limitations?

[MrOzzy]

First of all, hi all! My first post on these forums

Allright, here is the situation:

Currently I'm running a windows 2003 advanced server in a big windows network. For various reasons this fileserver is used as an image server where 200+ ghost images reside for tons of pc's and different configurations.
Currently I boot the computers from a DOS cd I configured, it automaticly detects the network card, installs the driver of the network card, requests an ip adress from the dhcp server, maps a network drive and launches ghost. Now the user just has to select the right ghost image and it will be installed (or puts an image of the computers harddisk on the server).

At least thats the theory ...

Everything runs fine untill ghost tries to read the mapped drive on the server. The server has two raid 5 sets witch have been combined into one big 350 GB volume. Using volumes involves using NTFS, but DOS can't handle NTFS. Using NTFSDos isn't a solution either since it seems to crash half of the computers. On top of that DOS only recognises 2GB of the harddisk space, making ghost believe there isn't enough room left to write the image to the mapped drive. Using FAT16 isn't a solution either since this limits me to using 32GB partitions, not really managable in my situation.

So, DOS is killing me here so I was looking for a linux alternative.

Here come the questions:

Can I use knoppix to do this?
Is there any way to trick ghost and make it believe its running in DOS?
As an alternative can I use any type of linux imaging software to make/restore all the images (it has to be able to make a full 1 - 1 copy of a windows hdd partition including the MBR an excluding the free space, on top of that it has to be able to cropress the images to limit network traffic and hdd space)?

I am pretty familiar to linux as a user, but not as an administrator, so I'm not really capable to do all the nice stuff in linux

[foamrotreturns]

That's a very odd problem, and Symantec should have the solution for you. Ghost has been a networked program for a long time, and they should have a solution for working with NTFS by now. Curiously though, the SAMBA protocol has always removed any filesystem limitations I have ever seen. For instance, Linux cannot natively write to NTFS, but when it's connecting to a Windows box over the network, and the drive is mapped as a SAMBA drive, it can do whatever it wants given the correct privileges. I think your problem lies not with the filesystem, but with some other configuration issue.

[MrOzzy]

First of all Ghost does have a client - server solution, the thing is I'm working in a public school and the price ghost asks for it is just way of the the schools budget. A school here (= belgium) has a fixed budget every year, but regarding ICT its pretty limited. One thing a school does have plenty of is man hours, depending on the number of pupils a school is given man hours and they are basicly free. Its very different from a normal business where an ict administrator wasting sevral hours implementing something is a lot more expensive then throw in a few 1000 euro to buy some software that does the job for you.
Ghost itself doesn't have any problem at all handeling NTFS partitions, it can handle just about any type of partition. It is the boot software I use that causes the problem.
Ghost can read and write to an NTFS partition without any problem, but DOS can't. So I'm basicly looking to replace my DOS boot script I made with a linux one, I just don't have a clue where to start.
I 'just' need software that can boot a computer from a cd, automaticly detects the network card and installs the driver, ask for an ip from a dhcp server, can map a large NTFS partition with rw access, is able to run a dos based executable and has direct access to the harddisks of the computer.

[foamrotreturns]

I work in a public school too, and the price of Ghost client-server software is not nearly as prohibitive as the cost of a Mircrosoft site license.
Knoppix can do what you are asking - it can map remote samba shares just fine. You'd have to set it up manually every single blasted time, however, and that would rapidly become a pain in the butt. I would suggest doing a remaster of the Knoppix CD and include a script that automatically maps your image share on boot.

[MrOzzy]

I work in a public school too, and the price of Ghost client-server software is not nearly as prohibitive as the cost of a Mircrosoft site license.

Not in Belgium, the governement has made some agreement with Microsoft, we basicly pay just about €2 for every licence, adding to that we get a free licence for every brand computer we got (eg:a compaq, dell, ...). This works worldwide by the way, since all those brands have an agreement with microsoft and the licence is basicly included in the price of the computer. You just have to make a list of every brand pc you got, doesn't matter how old it is.

Knoppix can do what you are asking - it can map remote samba shares just fine. You'd have to set it up manually every single blasted time, however, and that would rapidly become a pain in the butt. I would suggest doing a remaster of the Knoppix CD and include a script that automatically maps your image share on boot.

Yeah, I already figured that one out, I just don't have a clue where to start with that. I just need a Knoppix cd stripped from everything I don't need. I just need a bootable cd with the all the networking stuff on it, with all the autodetection, ... and samba. Adding to that everything has to be scripted, so everything has to run without user interaction.

Does samba also make it possible to run DOS .exe's without a problem?
And again, where do I start? How do I do it? Where can I find more info? Has something like this been done before (can't really imagine it hasn't)?

[|enouf|]

i wish i knew more on how to help directly using knoppix and scripts, but thought i'd throw out some SAMBA info anyway;
http://www.faqs.org/docs/samba/toc.html

[atrick-pay]

You may also want to look at mod-ing a WinXP LiveCD
(Like PE Builder)

[foamrotreturns]

Why is it that you require DOS? Knoppix includes an imaging program similar to Ghost, so you shouldn't need DOS at all, unless there is something else you need.

[rcook]

I understand that you want to run a DOS version ghost and access windows shares and drives. Knoppix with samba will let you access shared MS drives and you can read MS formated partitions from the machine you are on. To run ghost in a windows emulator such as wine might prove problematic.

atric-pay has it right. Try to download Bart's PE builder from this site: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ .

If you have any XP installs, it is possible to generate a very nice boot disk which is XP. There are links or stubs available to install ghost. You will have to check out the version numbers and possibly tweak the stub to get it to run with your version of ghost.

It runs well and it is Microsoft centric which should ease any pains for running a DOS version of ghost.

[MrOzzy]

Oh thanks, this might just be the one thing I was looking for! I'll let you all know how it turns out.