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System Recovery with Knoppix
An anonymous reader writes "This article shows how to access a non-booting Linux system with a Knoppix CD, get read-write permissions on configuration files, create and manage partitions and filesystems, and copy files to various storage media and over the network. You can use Knoppix for hardware and system configuration detection and for creating and managing partitions and filesystems. You can do it all from Knoppix's excellent graphical utilities, or from the command line."
Just two days ago I just had to use Knoppix to recover my system after a failed attempt to upgrade the kernel. Very good to have as a recovery tool.
Don't most distributions provide a boot disk to give you the kind of access you need?
Is that IBM has done this, right off their own website and helping the system admins, techies and anyone else interested in learning how to fix your defunct or otherwise broken system.
Tbe Knoppix Distro has been helpful at this point - and I'm glad that I kept it around, because I needed to get these people's email transferred without much hassle
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Cig:
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(Mini Usual Stuff)
It's been a long time since I've needed anything else. I used to carry a Trinux CD, but now it's Knoppix.
I use the compact flash card because it fits in both my camera and my PDA.
sigs, as if you care.
No, I'm not a weenie who needs things spoon fed to them, I've been using Linux since long before it was cool or chic, starting with Slack back in '96, then RedHat, then Mandrake. After Win2k came out I moved back to using Windows for most of my day-to-day desktop needs (now mostly Win XP), but recently I've installed MEPIS on my laptop and I find it quite enjoyable to use. The things that stand out to me are 1) fabulous hardware compatibility, including out of the box support for almost every component of my Dell Inspiron 8500 laptop, with NVidia GeForce4 Go graphics and so on (I did have to make a quick manual edit to XF86Config-4 to get widescreen support, and my Microsoft MN-720 802.11b card took about half an hour of screwing around to get running, but ndiswrapper was already there, I just had to find the right driver version and run it.
Okay, that's all the ranting I can do for now. Did I mention that MEPIS makes a great recovery CD? That's how I first discovered it. Give it a try, funny name aside.
In theory, URPMI is fabulous, but in practice, I've had far, far better luck keeping a clean, consistent system without weird, incompatible RPMs and other stuff mucking up my install when using MEPIS, and find I almost never have to go outside of the pre-configured repositories. And Mandrake's lack of working out of the box Nvidia support (at least as of the last version I used, probably a year and a half ago) killed it for me. MEPIS is the first distro I've been able to use extensively without encountering some hitch that required a kernel recompile.
Don't get me wrong, I have been doing Linux kernel compiles since around '96 (when I was a freshman in college, and I thought compiling the kernel was pretty 3733+), but I just don't want to screw around with that stuff for a day-to-day use desktop system. Custom compiled kernels for special purpose server boxes is fine, but it just doesn't fly for a desktop distro for me - I want to get work done, not screw around with kernel settings.
Last I heard write was still experiencing random failures, not that it matters for data recovery.
But I'd recommend using this to work on/repair Windows computers. You get read/write (its really just Windows, so..) and a lot of crap can be repaired with a virus/adware scan (or two). If your comfortable enough with Windows there really isn't much you can't recover from once you can read the disk (sort of a complete hardware failure).
As a side note, it also reads ext2 and 3. Handy for working on your friends dual-boot systems too.
Personally, I carry on of these and either Knoppix or an older Gentoo live disk.
Quack, quack.
Even better, go get this book:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/knoppixhks/
I know the author - he is what IMHO most would call an "uber hacker", when it comes to Linux in general.
Highly reccomended.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Where is ntfsclone in the latest KNOPPIX? I tried version 3.4 I think it was - couldn't find it anywhere, so had to revert to 3.3. There was an ntfsprogs package but it didn't seem to include all the tools. That's all I use KNOPPIX for - making an image of my Win2K partition.
Tom's Root Boot" is the only Linux boot CD needed to fix a Linux system. Although I use Knoppix occasionally to test hardware.
Without physical security you have no security at all. I don't even need a boot disk to root your linux box. When the box hits the LILO or Grub protion I can interupt the boot and add "single" to boot options of the kernel. The machine will now start in single user mode (which does not require the root password). I can now make a back of shadow password file, change the root password, and telinit(8) to whatever level your distro uses for network connectivity. I can then upload your "sensitive" files to box I own. To civer my tracks I can remove my presence from all of your logs (or if I was smart, just restore backed up version of logs), restore the shadow password file, touch(1) all of the files back to their original mtimes, and voila.
I bet that keeps them from actaully bothering you with problems, since it seems at the drop of a hat you'll erase their hard drive on them. Good on you, mate!
Knoppix can do that and a whole lot more.
Knoppix Hacks
Virus scanning, emergency router, write to NTFS, even fire up a mythtv box.
Wow... We slashdotted IBM! But to the point: I wonder what is your experience. What is better for system recovery? Standard Knoppix which is a general purpose desktop system meant to be an impressive demonstration tool but lacking many security programs, or some specialised versions like Knoppix STD or Local Area Security which have more tools but are kind of "script kiddie friendly" and look very unprofessional with their Martix themes, leet-speak, "proving no localhost is safe" slogans etc. making them look more like intrusion than recovery tools? Or maybe Morphix is the answer thanks to its ease of customisation and apt-getting new packages on the fly? Do you have any Real World(TM) experience?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."