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Ghost for Unix
junyoung writes "Hubert Feyrer released the latest version of g4u ("ghost for unix"), a NetBSD-based bootfloppy/CD-ROM image that allows one to easily clone PC harddisks by using FTP. Since it reads the disk bit by bit, it can create an image of any operating system and any file system. Besides, it's free (under BSD style license)."
When i was reading the article i was thinking 'why do we need another bl**dy disk copier/ghoster/whateverer' But the link states that it can be used with all file systems, which is something i have yet to see in other utilities.
Good on the chap who wrote it.
I definantly will be using this in future.
Huff
server.sh: /dev/hda | nc -l -p 5030
/dev/hda
cat
client.sh:
nc server 5030 >
they are using dd as well, just running it through gzip -9 before uploading it to the server (distrib/i386/floppies/ramdisk-g4u/uploaddisk in the source)
The thing I dislike the most about Norton Ghost, is hat it's DOS based. Getting networking working, for SMB image transfer is not always easy...
.tar.gz, and takes edits various /etc files to change hostname, IP, etc. Chroot, run lilo, and your done.
Cloning PC-Unix boxes (Linux, etc), doesn't really require any special software though... When I need a new node for our EDA cluster, I boot tomsrbt, and run fdisk, and then kick off a script that pulls down an
--
Matt
Ghost is a trademark of Paramount Pictures
You should do a trademark search at the patent and trademark office before releasing infringing software.
If the target is 1 sector less, you aren't going to be able to use this tool. I still think tar and netpipes is the only way. (unless you use XFS, in such case the best way would be xfsdump, tar, and xfsrestore) I'm trying to write a multicast fileserver for just this purpose. I have a lab of hetrogeneous machines(I take what I can get from the university) that need to be clones(btw, don't forget to run lilo if you use tar/xfs, and don't forget to change the site-key for ssh). I'm ending up using a homebrew solution. There are other good ghost utilities out there that boot from a cdrom(BART perhaps isn't bad), but I still need my own custom solution because I'm not gonna be here forever to make this lab work, and it needs to be "put this in the floppy drive and select options from the menu" easy.
Karma Clown
...RMS is set to release gnu4u, "GNU's Norton Utilities 4 Unix". Wow...
Ghost handles all file systems as well. They call it a sector by sector disk copy. In this case Ghost does not care what is on the disk, it copies the DISK rather than the filesystem or partition as it does by default. But as with g4u you can't resize and so forth with a sector by sector copy.
The only problem with Ghost is the licensing cost.
The multicast console kicks ass -- I can ghost a tonne of workstations at one time and not kill the network.
Symantecs' support infrastructure is wicked too. We haven't hit a problem that wasn't documented on their website yet.
Also, ghost understands filesystems and not raw blocks. I don't understand why reading the raw data is an advantage -- you get images the size of your hard disk or partition instead of the size of the data. Ghost 7.5 can understand fat/ntfs/ext2 and ext3. It can also do raw reads of the hard disk.
btw, I don't work for symantec.
-- DrZaius - Minister of Sciences and Protector of the Faith
Ever try using Ghost on a Sparc station? Ghost can't handle any file systems at all if they aren't sitting on x86 hardware, which is a problem g4u can solve. So that's two problems with Ghost.
I don't understand why reading the raw data is an advantage -- you get images the size of your hard disk or partition instead of the size of the data.
Shouldn't matter. If you have wiped your drive's free space (trivial; use a program that creates thousands of 1 MB files filled with a repeating pattern) first, an "image the size of the hard disk or partition" will compress much smaller.
Ghost 7.5 can understand fat/ntfs/ext2 and ext3.
But does it grok ReiserFS or any of the other more obscure filesystems in use on servers?
Will I retire or break 10K?
There is also partition image which is more advanced imo.
Okay, here's a few, and there's many more from whence these came:
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
> Ever since Symantec bought Ghost, they've been changing it from a simple, easy to use, small, beautiful and most of all SMALL utility to a typical bloated pile of junk
:)), it proves that the code base is solid and WORKS, all the features WORKS, they don't have crap like product activation, they aren't being lame about expiry or whatever other PITA software come with. This tool is one of the few that I'd put on EVERY sysadmin desk.
... ).
Actually, you could say that about just EVERY product they've bought, EXEPT ghost.
The executable still fits on a 1.44MB diskette with MSDOS bootable files, and has a LOAD of features for the size.
I don't care about the TAR or tape driver portion of it, but I sure do care about the splitting, compression, encryption, being able to read the god damn compressed/encrypted/segmented file WITHOUT having to reghost it back to a hard drive in case I need a single file, I love being able to ghost directly to CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, to another machine or straight to a win2k server with ghost enterprise) exept that this portion is more or less good because of the fact that you need a dos packet driver and it causes a PITA with modern networking cards. I love the fact that it even worked with my 1.2TB raid (yeah, just for testing
Okay it's not free, but it sure isn't overpriced compared to office suites or some other software out there that are doing far less and are in no way near as reliable as Ghost is. It pays for itself. Now if you want to compare this with a unix variant, be my guest, I have nothing against competition, but I sure do have something against +4 insightful comments based on something thrown in the air without substancial evidence. This isn't Norton Internet Security or Personnal Firewall that we are talking about (yes they really killed Atguard with this pile of
The only thing I'd complain about ghost is that it's still dos based. I'd like to be able to have a hotswap IDE bay and keep my Win2k machine up and plug the drive, ghost it, move the file to my datacenter, and unplug without having to reboot or anything, that would be great, right now I use a testbench for this and it's still good enough for my needs, and saving me a LOT of time.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
We've been using it to clone our NT based workstations at work for some time now and it kicks ass! It copes quite happily with NTFS(!), FAT16/32, Ext2/3, ReiserFS etc etc...
It's a client/server program and they provide a bootable ISO image on their site (saves you having to create one if you're lazy like me) ;). You can also compress the image taken using either gzip or bzip compression.
Just a few random thoughts on this..Sorry moderators if I get too bleeding edge for you :)
:)
This was listed under developers when it should have been listed under desktop monkeys that run around putting out fires everytime the sales groups comes back with a crateload of laptops that just got smashed through the Chicago Ohara airport baggage system and now he/she has to get these laptops ready for the next trade show kind of person. (zoolander speak, gotta love it)
I remember doing this a few years back when I worked for Altigen. Well, ok it was transferring over the SCSI bus instead of ethernet... Here's what happened.
There was some big 'ol trade show in vegas and we were getting chummy with 'ol compaq. They wanted us to be a VAR by adding our telephony system to their servers. So as a show of like, i dunno what to call it, good faith? They shipped us 10 of their top of the line servers all decked out sweet.
Hmm, what year was that? 2000? Well, win2k was just out and our version of ghost hadn't quite caught up to M$'s new moving target NTFS. (Everytime you install any MS they do little tweaks to the MBR that aren't backwards compatible.) So me and my partner were sitting there scratching our heads. The servers had arrived 1 day before the show (late, fuqin compaq) so our choices were...
a. stay up all night installing these motherfuckers one by one.
b. figure it out.
Well, my partner was totally windows at that time, and I had been using linux for about a year and open source was getting me jazzed. I had a linux system I had scratched together from broken parts in the warehouse running next to my 2k system. So I went around IRC and reading up howto's about DD.
I made some notes and yanked the IDE drive out of my system, walked over to the compaq's and pulled a drive from each one, then filled one of them with all the drives. I put my linux IDE drive in the system and booted.
dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/sda
It was a suspenseful moment to say the least. We watched as the first image was being made and almost held our breaths in anticipation as we waited for it to boot up.
Success!
That night we both went home totally stoked that we got it done without hassle. We just repeated the process for the rest of the machines and we got to go home early. I fucking hate this gay ass penguin OS for a desktop (it really sucks!!!) but i'll take it any day over any commercial product if I need to save my ass.
Thanks
--toq
it can clone win2k partitions without any problems
it has problems cloning redhat 8.0 ext3 partitions (cloning breaks with a strange error)
it can clone anything in the sector by sector mode (the images are compressed on the fly)
it is extremely efficient in multicasting mode - it cloned to 14 machines only slightly slower than to a single machine!!
a lousy DOS packet driver can cause really strange problems (that's the driver problem, but still it does affect ghost!)
I see advantages and disadvantages with g4u:
+ you are not tied to a win32 ghost server on the LAN, you merely need a reachable FTP server
+ many many NIC drivers included
- no multicasting
"GPL gets around this by asking that you give them the copyright and give them all the credit leaving you with none."
The GPL does nothing of the sort. Nowhere in the GPL is the request made for contributors to sign over their copyrights. Just the opposite is true. Contributors retain copyrights over contributed code that is their own creation. The GPL states that contributors of derivitive code must grant others the full right to copy, modify, and distribute those derivitive contributions. That's it.
You are probably confusing the GPL with the FSF's advice to assign it the copyright to your GPL'd code that you wish to have legally defended by the FSF (under the assumption that you are not financially able to enforce your copyrights yourself). Nowhere is this a requirement.
Likewise, there is no provision in the GPL to strip you of credit for contributions you have made. Once again, quite the opposite is true. The GPL goes to great length to make sure you are properly attributed and that recognition for your contributions is not usurped.
The GPL has been carefully crafted to protect the rights of authors without imposing unnecessary burdens on contributors of derivitive works. The only inconvenience I have ever noticed with the GPL was experienced from a proprietary software perspective. And that was a primary purpose of the GPL: to make life difficult for those who want to steal the works of others, while making life easier for those who want to build upon the works of others and contribute those improvements back to the world.
The GPL works wonderfully and is a thing of beauty.
We have about 50 Debian boxes, all installed with Systemimager. Basically, it uses EtherBoot to load a kernel/initrd over the network, then uses rsync to do most of the heavy lifting. We had to make a few local customizations, but it has worked quite well for us.