Cloning: FOG, dd, Clonezilla was Re: golden server

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi,

On Thu, 30 Jul 2009, R. Scott Belford wrote:

> For what it's worth, I manage all of my images with a Debian netbook
> running DRBL and Clonezilla.  I can provide imaging services, fat
> client booting, thin-client booting, and net-installs to *any*
> computer that can pxe boot.  Clonezilla is great for keeping test
> images, or for doing pxe installs to a virtualized server.

While the subject of cloning is on the go, we recently started using FOG in
the college I work at.  It took a bit of work (mostly to get the network
doing multicast properly), but at this point we have a FOG server which 

 - keeps track of all of our desktops, what their hardware is and which
   image they're running
 - can pull an image from a desktop in around an hour (depending on image size)
 - can multicast clone 60+ windows desktops in two hours, including the
   time for windows to come up and work through its start process, join the
   domain, etc.
 - naturally can also do linux or dual boot clones. 
 - re-image a single machine at command of an admin 
 - can add windows printers to a group of machines
 - can shutdown all the windows machines, log people out after specific
   periods, etc.
 - wake groups of desktops using wake on lan
 - run a disk check or ram disk on any machine or group of machines
 - and lots more

	http://fogproject.org/

We're highly pleased with it.

Gavin