Software

Re: What cloning software do you recommend?

dbarlamas — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:51:24 GMT

Hello, I am trying to get FOG running at our non profit. Ran into some snags, was hoping that you may know someone that I can contact for help.? Did you ever get it going in your organization? I am specifically having problem with the image upload. Let me know and I can give you specifics if you have time. Thanks.

Re: What cloning software do you recommend?

Rog — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 08:40:59 GMT

awalshe09:

If you've got a power user/guru available you can get some great results just with the linux/bsd command line program 'dd'.

http://www.debianadmin.com/recover-data-from-a-dead-hard-drive-using-dd.html

It's not pretty to work with but all it takes is a live rescue disc to get started. If out of the box solutions aren't working for you this can be a last resort. (one with a highly technical learning curve though, no pretty point and click available)

I sort of disagree with this "not pretty to work with" statement. dd is a very elegant (i.e. "simple") tool.

Sure, dd may not be not intuitive to, say, your grandmother, but it is a very elegant tool if you realize the core thing that it does and doesn't do. Linux/UNIX is built on the philosophy that you understand these "simple" raw tools and then string them together in a way that lets you accomplish exactly what you need to do. If one tool doesn't do it for you, you use a symbol like a | or a > mark.

There are a lot of other simple kickass tools built on top of dd, like ddrescue. ddrescue is a godsend when dd craps out because of hard drive issues.

Re: What cloning software do you recommend?

awalshe09 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:21:37 GMT

If you've got a power user/guru available you can get some great results just with the linux/bsd command line program 'dd'.

http://www.debianadmin.com/recover-data-from-a-dead-hard-drive-using-dd.html

It's not pretty to work with but all it takes is a live rescue disc to get started. If out of the box solutions aren't working for you this can be a last resort. (one with a highly technical learning curve though, no pretty point and click available)

Re: What cloning software do you recommend?

shipley.c — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:00:45 GMT

dbarlamas:

Looking for infomation on FOG for disaster recover for servers and workstations and for deployment. Want to store on the network. Very new to this, would like some input. Thanks for any replies

I'm going to be implementing this for my consulting company and some clients, but I haven't yet done it. Have you listened to the FOG Podcast on Floss Weekly (link provided)? It doesn't go into how to implement, but does discuss some of the things that are possible with it.

Re: What cloning software do you recommend?

Rog — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:22:11 GMT

CALIFMARY:
I use GPARTED. It's open source; free.

Open source is only "free" when your time is worth nothing!

While I prefer gparted for partitioning (and QTparted for the GUI interface), I didn't notice that it was faster.

Re: What cloning software do you recommend?

dbarlamas — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:47:31 GMT

Looking for infomation on FOG for disaster recover for servers and workstations and for deployment. Want to store on the network. Very new to this, would like some input. Thanks for any replies

Re: RE: What cloning software do you recommend?

Rog — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 04:24:10 GMT

Yeah, I've heard good things about it. Like any of these tools, the most important thing is that you can use whatever tool you settle on.

A side note, multicast support is very important on any network that will require heavy ghosting / imaging. I took that for granted on a wired network, and now that I often work more on wireless networks with no multicast support, I long for the good ole days!

Re: What cloning software do you recommend?

donc — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 22:09:42 GMT

Drive Clone Pro - Although in truth it's very rare nowadays that we need to clone drives (maybe one in the past year or two). We use network services to deploy Ops and Apps, and ustate migration to move user files and personal settings between drives.

Re: What cloning software do you recommend?

CALIFMARY — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:20:56 GMT

I use GPARTED. It's open source; free. I used Ghost in the past and it was a bit easier but I'm now used to GPARTED and I like it just fine. It has a decent GUI and allows you to re-size, copy, move, create and delete partitions. You can set flags and disk labels. It works faster than Ghost did.

There were times when the cloning would fail but I would go to the GPARTED support forums and they had good help there. They also have good documentation and tutorials on their Website.

Biggest limitation - it only clones disk to disk. Can't store the image on the network or CD's like you could with Ghost. So I have one or two drives set aside just to store images. When I have an image of a model, I reduce it to its minimum size and copy it to an image drive. I can have 4 different PC models stored on each image drive.

I list each PC model specs and build info (apps, customizations, updates, etc) on a spec sheet. The spec sheet is rubber banded to the image drives.

When I need to build a PC in a hurry I grab the image drive, copy and size-up the appropriate model partition to the new hard drive and tape a copy of the appropriate model spec sheet to the new PC build. After deployment I use the spec sheet to update my equipment database.

I feel overly wordy. Hope someone finds this useful!

Re: RE: What cloning software do you recommend?

shipley.c — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:11:23 GMT

FOG has some more exposure now. I just heard about it on FLOSS Weekly, episode 53. Which is a great podcast about open source software. And it has a new website.

RE: What cloning software do you recommend?

dsentelle — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:42:00 GMT

I just tried G4U on some brand new HP 5800 machines we bought and it works like a charm. I did have to go download the alpha version due to something a little buggy in the HP's ethernet settings or the kernel's network drivers.

If you go this route and want to avoid the sysprep duplicate SID problem, go and download the 'NewSID' program from www.sysinternals.com. They've recently been bought by microsoft, and I was able to find NewSID at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897418.aspx

Even if they are now part of Microsoft, Microsoft still doesn't officially support this method. Microsoft has so much material available online, I can't remember the last time I needed support from them.

RE: What cloning software do you recommend?

mfitchor — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:30:00 GMT

We are just getting started with our computer lab and I have been very happy with "FOG" (Free, Ghost-like Cloning Solution). It's a server that keeps a registry of all the computers, which image they use and provides facilities to upload an image from a computer or send it to a computer using a built in webpage. It has many other capabilities useful for managing a computer lab, installs easily and just works.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/

RE: What cloning software do you recommend?

kmw — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:30:00 GMT

I recommend that non-profits look to the http://LiveCDlist.com as an option for most of their software needs. For cloning I found http://Clonezilla.sourceforge.net to do a good job and is readily available.

RE: What cloning software do you recommend?

Jeramie — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:38:00 GMT

I've heard Acronis TrueImage or Ghost Solution Suite 2.0 are the way to go.

RE: What cloning software do you recommend?

WorkIncIT — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 18:13:00 GMT

Great article and responses!
Just a reminder about duplicating SIDS can cause undesired network issues. If not using SysPrep remember to use a tool that will create a random/new SID for the cloned or imaged PCs. NewSID or GhostWalker are two good examples. NewSID can be run in GUI mode where Norton's GhostWalker must be run in DOS mode.

Microsoft's suggestion that this is not as critical in an Active Directory environment as network SIDs are used does not quite match real life examples.

Best regards,
John Sweeney
Systems Adminstrator
WORK Inc.