Re: need floppy based disk imaging tool for Red Hat 9

From: Kevin D. Snodgrass (kdsnodgrass_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 01/16/04 

Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 13:53:01 -0600

luther wrote:
> Have Red Hat 9 with ext3 and linux-swap partitions.
> Looking for a disk-imaging tool (something like Symantec's Ghost).
>
> Would like to:
> a. Boot off a floppy.

Find Busybox, will seriously cut down on the file size of
utilities. Build your own kernel with the absolute minimum
hardware support for your machine. (Ex: You don't need USB
support for this unless your keyboard is USB.)

Or you can use a Knoppix bootable CD.

> b. Use the imaging tool (on the floppy) to make a hard disk image.

That's what they are used for...

> c. Store the image on another PC via FTP, SMB, etc. (Networking
> support.)

Check. Easiest (MHO) is NFS. Not sure about doing this
with FTP, you have to store the image file someplace before
uploading to FTP server...

If you do the floppy approach when you build the custom
kernel make sure you include your network card as a built
it. (I wouldn't use loadable modules on a floppy boot,
takes more space and is more work to get going)

> d. In case of a disaster, would like to use the image to recreate the
> system on a new hard disk.

That's the general idea..

> e. This disk-imaging tool should be open source or freeware.

man dd

dd if=/dev/hda|gzip>/mnt/nfsmountpoint/image

Note the use of gzip.

When I did this a couple years ago I wrote a little C
program to write huge files of 0x00 first. When you delete
a file all the bits on the disk that make up the file are
left, i.e. a mix of 1s and 0s, the rm command just removes
the entry from the directory and marks the inodes as free.
gzip will compress blocks of 0s much better than blocks of
mixed 1s and 0s. 

-- 
Kevin D. Snodgrass
Help our soldiers in the field:
     http://www.operationac.org/
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