Connect to Windows Server

[TechSupp]

Hope this may the right forum. Been using SystemRescueCD (Main Page - SystemRescueCd) for a while now to image PC's from a PC to a portable hard drive and then on to the new PC but I would like to image them to the server on the network. The CD runs linux (not sure what version or flavour) but none the wiser after looking the the documentation how I go about connecting to the server (win 2003, got a share already set up). Anyone used this software before like this and could give me some pointers of instructions. The CD picks up te DHCP server and allocates and address and gateway etc so it sees the network, just don't know what to do next even after looking at the documentation.

[Navaho]

You need to "mount" the server share - once you've done that, you'll be able to access it as though it were a local directory (this is more-or-less the *nix equivalent of mapping a network drive to a drive letter). To mount Windows shares, the CD uses Samba

 

There is a directory named /mnt which is traditionally used as a base for mounting network shares. System Rescue CD has had a bug in the past (don't know if it's fixed now) that meant you shouldn't mount things directly in /mnt, but in a sub-directory.

 

Create the directory where you will mount your Windows share. Open a terminal and type:

mkdir /mnt/win

 

Then, to mount the share, type something like:

mount -t smbfs -o "lfs,username=WindowsUser,password=WindowsPassword" //1.2.3.4/share/ /mnt/win/

or (if you don't need user/password):

mount -t smbfs -o lfs //1.2.3.4/share/ /mnt/win/

 

The "lfs" option enables large file support, which is needed to handle files larger than 2GB.

 

Once that is done, you can simply run partimage and set the image file to something like

/mnt/win/Windows_Image.img

[maniac]

Download a linux build called PING, PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) which uses partimage (the same tool on the system rescue CD) but has the in-built ability to talk to a windows server without issuing any commands, it prompts you for all the details needed, or you can pre-program the details into a configuration file on a bootable USB key or CD so all you have to do is select the image from a menu, no other details are needed.

 

We used this to image our machines until recently when I setup a server running FOG, which again uses Partimage but on a whole new level including PXE booting and a whole host of other useful features.

 

Mike.