free open source ghost

[seacider]

Found this as I was looking at a different tech forum.

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=201099

[ICT_GUY]

Does it work, version 0.06 does not inspire confidence 8O

[OutToLunch]

I've had great success with PING - http://ping.windowsdream.com/

 

What is PING

PING is a live Linux ISO, based on the excellent Linux From Scratch (LFS) documentation. It can be burnt on a CD and booted, or integrated into a PXE / RIS environment.

 

Several tools have been added and written, so to make this ISO the perfect choice to backup and restore whole partitions, an easy way. It sounds like Symantec Ghost™, but has even better features, and is totally free.

 

Next time I need to do an image I'll give FOG a go and see how it copes...

[CyberNerd]

It uses partimage which is stable. I guess FOG just ties a few other technologies together, similar to Ghost for Linux (which works on windows)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l

[openhgs]

Just what we need, yet another free ghosting tool. We've used http://udpcast.linux.lu/ for ages with excellent results, or simply boot from a linux disk and use dd.

[fafster]

Sorry to drag this back up. Saw this mentioned on some other sites, so I thought I'd give it a go.

 

I've installed this under Fedora 8, which is running on VMWare server. After the intial setup, I created another virtual machine, and installed XP Pro on it. I haven't bothered with a sysprep as it's just a test run, but I'm liking it so far.

 

I've changed the boot priority of the XP virtual machine to PXE by default, and now whenever the machine boots it grabs tasks from the server. At the moment it's creating an image of the XP machine and storing it on the server. Next I'm going to restore the image and see how it handles it.

 

Pros:

- Easy initial setup.

- Web interface.

- After first configuring a client machine to PXE booting, no need to visit it at all.

- Fast enough.

- Comes with an installable service that detects new tasks and reboots the client machine.

 

Cons:

- No multicasting.

- Have to enter each client station into the system manually, but this will be remedied in future versions.

- Little documentation at present.

 

 

I think this is something to keep your eye on. It has other tasks too, like memtest, disk wiping, disk checking, file recovery and WOL. Not having to visit a workstation to restore it because someone's cocked it up is a massive plus.

[MisterTrimble]

I would seriously recommend CloneZilla, which is open source.

 

We've dumped Ghost and have been using this to image all of our new machines. It can either be used as a Live CD using a USB drive for a handful of machines or using a Linux server and the DRBL option, it can be used just like Ghost Corporate, multicasting out toa stack of machines.

 

You can get it from http://clonezilla.sourceforge.net/

 

Cheers, MisterTrimble

[srochford]

Just what we need, yet another free ghosting tool. We've used http://udpcast.linux.lu/ for ages with excellent results, or simply boot from a linux disk and use dd.

 

Always willing to look at new tools but the "machines should be rigorously identical hardware-wise" looks like it would be a complete non-starter. Not sure if this is a real limitation of the imaging process or just something to be aware of as a possible issue.

[Ric_]

@srochford: If the machines are similar enough and sysprepped (assuming Windows boxes here) then you will be OK.

[mac_shinobi]

Is there a wiki for all the above and or any other open source / free imaging tools that have been and were mentioned above ?

[Ric_]

@gecko: It should be on the wiki (of course I may have forgotten to reset somebody's password on there )

[CyberNerd]

check the partimage wiki manual for basic usage.

http://www.partimage.org/Partimage-manual

 

we need a review of FOG/clonezilla/G4U/G4L/partimage/dd/udpcast

[saihaynes]

Driveimage XMl is a nice piece of freeware for creating a base image (windows), Used in conjunction with Bart PE it works very well indeed. Partimage has always worked well for Linux.....

 

Check out http://www.runtime.org/driveimage_faq.htm

Edited January 9, 2008 by saihaynes