sbhoffmaster

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Help! (And how do you do?) My boss has tasked me with a project. Now I haven't programmed since BC, and I have no experience with Linux, but I guess we're going going to get started by throwing me into the lake and seeing if I sink or swim. I want to write a program (or maybe one exists) that will create an auto install disk on which I can copy part or all all the hard drive.

Please remember...I know NO Linux, but I do understand the basics of programming. Tell me where to look, how to get started, or if it already exists.

Thanks.

pixellany

I would start with "Bash Guide for Beginners"--available free at tldp.org.

The low-level routine for "cloning" or "ghosting" is dd. Search here for a tutorial by AwesomeMachine.

You will also want to look at things like rsync.

homey

Have a look at the Clonezilla live-cd . The live-cd part is debian based and clonezilla can save to another local partition, samba share or ssh .... I use the ssh choice myself and it works a treat!

Jimbo99

Does it work only with linux partitions or any partition?

Heh, nevermind. I should have looked first.

sbhoffmaster

I can't use DD. I only want to copy used bytes of the hard drive. DD copies the entire hard drive, which won't fit on a DVD.

dcpatters

You could do something like this:

Login as root

cd /

find . -print | grep -v "^\./tmp/" | grep -v "^\./proc/" | cpio -ocvB | gzip -9 >/tmp/fulldisk.cpio.gz

Burn this file (everything) to a DVD. Before un-packing, make the partitions and finally un-pack this cpio off a DVD.