Re: [Nolug] Netboot utilities using Linux

"Andrew S. Johnson" <andy@asjohnson.com> writes:

The way I do it is using knoppix. http://www.knoppix.net. knoppix
has partimage (http://www.partimage.org) on it which can easily be
used to clone winboxen. I did this recently at work, cloning several
win2k servers. I saved the images to an NFS mounted dir on a solaris
box. It happily cloned NTFS partitioned (despite a warning msg).
If you haven't tried knoppix for sysadmin kinda stuff, you need to.
To get a root shell on knoppix, just do "sudo bash" at a prompt.
You'll be amazed at all the useful stuff packed onto that CD.

A lot easier than diskless root NFS unless you just wanna do that to
learn it. If you're at a bash prompt, mounting root may be as simple
as something like
# mount -t nfs -o rw server:/path/to/nfs/root/volume /
Perhaps a remote root at the grub prompt might help get it to
actually boot. something like
# kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=server:/path/to/root other options
In the root for your nfs mount you'd have an appropriate fstab
with nfs mount stuff for /var /home etc.
 
> Does anyone have any experience netbooting Linux on a PC
> to run some utilities for cloning and maybe other sysadmin
> stuff? My kids have windoze PC's for their games, and I'd
> like to use a free (as in speech) method of cloning, instead
> of the old DOS based version of Drive Image I use now.
> I'm not looking to do LTSP yet, since their games need
> directx and all. I've gotten the GRUB netboot floppy to load
> vmlinuz and initrd.gz from my tftp server, which gets me to
> a bash prompt and a few things in an 8 meg ram fs. I think
> I may have to go to a diskless-root-NFS type setup to get
> what I want. Any ideas or hints?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andy Johnson
>
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-- 
Scott Harney<scotth@scottharney.com>
"...and one script to rule them all."
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