[Ubuntu-be] Massive USB multiplier

[Wouter Vandenneucker]

I like copykitten! It does need a mascot though.. :D

2012/9/25 Jan Bongaerts <jbongaerts op gmail.com>

> Being part of the development is way above my capcity, but I can help you
> brainstorm for names.
>
> The first that sprang to mind was Copycat.
> You could make varieties of this, like Copylion or copytiger, 'cos it does
> it like a boss, or the other way round, Copykitten, because it's such a
> light application.
> In the same line, you could say Copybox, because it's a little kinda
> dropbox that starts copying everything you put in there.
>
> I'll see what else comes up.
>
> On 25 September 2012 00:33, Wouter Vandenneucker <woutervddn op gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi all
>>
>> As some of you might know, last sunday (yesterday) there was a dipro fair
>> in Hasselt.
>> Since both William (leader USB stick project) and Claudio (leader ISO
>> project) where present, we talked about the new USB sticks and tried some
>> things.
>>
>> At the moment we're having sticks with 1 single ISO on it and some sticks
>> with a multiboot of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu on them.
>> It striked us that we needed a simple way to copy files to the usb
>> drives. (So we bought a hub at dipro to be able to write more USBcards at
>> the same time)
>> We used ddrescue to copy the image, but having to look for the right
>> names of the devices and copying them 1 by 1, changing the drive letter was
>> a bit cumbersome.
>>
>> So this evening I set out to simplify that issue.
>>
>> *Ultimate goal -* masterstyle
>> I'm thinking about a small personal project that I've nicknamed "black
>> box". The goal would be that you insert all drives, tell the program what
>> the master is and it would duplicate that master to all the rest. Ideally,
>> it would take the right image itself and copy to all drives without user
>> input.
>>
>> I was thinking about a single board computer with only 1 button and an
>> LED. Pressing the button would make the script run, autoselecting the right
>> image from the harddrive (sda) and copying it to all usb devices attached
>> to it (sd*).
>> *
>> There I fixed it -* hackerstyle
>> So where are we at after 1 evening of coding?
>> I made a script called autoDD.sh (if you know a cooler name, please
>> shoot!)
>> I'm not going to bother you all with the code right now, but this is how
>> it works:
>>
>> you launch the script by typing:
>>
>>> *sudo bash autoDD.sh /Master/Image/Or/Drive*
>>>
>>
>> The script only works if you've got a computer with 1 harddrive (SDA) and
>> if you've got a USB with the master file on it.
>> you insert that first, before the empty usb drives. you call the script
>> with:
>>
>> *sudo bash autoDD.sh /dev/sdb*
>>>
>>
>> Now the script always rejects /dev/sda because I've told it that that is
>> the default harddrive, then it takes the drive you've provided (/dev/sdb)
>> and then it copies that content to all other /dev/sd* devices.
>>
>> *Things to test
>> *There are a couple things I need/want to test before releasing the code:
>>
>>    - having a master file in an ISO format.
>>       - normally the script already works if you want this. You could in
>>       theory provide autoDD.sh with a /path/to/ISO instead of a /dev/sdb, but I
>>       haven't test it
>>    - speed when writing to more than 1 or 2 USB devices at the same time
>>       - Again, in theory all should be fine, but I didn't test it.
>>
>>
>> I'll test these things this week and I'll try to add a failsafe for
>> people with more harddrives in their computer. (because this script will
>> ruin your system if you have more than 1 hdd and/or if it isn't sda.
>>
>> That being said, the script successfully copied the contents of 1 stick
>> to 2 other sticks during my late night snack, so it does work.
>> If someone has a better idea to make it a real "blackbox" (with that I
>> mean 1 button, 1 LED, tons of USB slots and no screen, mouse or keyboard),
>> please give your views..
>>
>> Grts
>>
>>
>> Wouter
>>
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