[Ubuntu PA] Disk Imaging Solutions

[Brian Stempin]

>
> > This has several advantages:
> > 1.  Other than writing the script, no manual labor has to be done (ie,
> > creating the "deep copy")
> The only reason for the deep copy is that we have customized the
> interface.  On a frugal install, this includes different desktop
> backgrounds in hidden folders, the mydsl extensions (extra apps), and
> anything else in the /opt folder.
>
*snip*

> > 3.  Once the script finishes executing, we could have it call other
> > sub-scripts to do different types of special configs.  Ie, this batch
> > of HDs needs a few non-default apps, so InstallDSL.sh will then call
> > Installxx.sh , passing it all of the needed arguments, thus preventing
> > any further user interaction and saving time.
> OK.  My reply to 1. above goes to some of this.
>
>
*snip*
This makes sense.  The only reason that I suggested the sub-scripts was to
give that part of the process a "plug-in" type of feeling.  Instead of
modifying the master script, we could write a plugin (a subscript) that
would carry out the customization.  This way, we (or someone else) could
reuse the project for a different purpose and create their own
customizations with very little work.

As long as it works, that's all that matters :).  I'm sure we'll make
refinements and do some tuning as the project goes into production.

In regards to your "toxic soup" partition tables:
I'll see if I can do some testing and scripting for this.  I doubt I'll have
time tonight, but Friday is looking good.  I'll see what I can do.

On 1/24/08, Kevin Valentine <kevin.valentine at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Brian Stempin wrote:
> >
> >        5) run script that creates/formats partitions
> >        6) power cycle the drive (pull USB plug or toggle on/off switch)
> >        7) check if partition table gets read correctly
> >
> >
> > Is (6) needed?  I recall trying to create an "install USB hd" (think
> > the Ubuntu install CD...except the media is a USB hd), which required
> > me to partition and re-partition my USB hd.  I don't recall having to
> > unplug and replug my drive.
> >
> > Does anybody know this off of the top of their head, or should I go
> > ahead and invest the time in testing it?
> It may not be necessary to power cycle.  I've seen it suggested in the
> DSL frugal install howto and a few other places.  I've also seen it's
> usefulness during manual testing.  It seems to be the only reliable way
> to get the OS to reread the partition table after you've created new
> partitions.  Is there a way to force the OS to reread the table?  I may
> be thinking too much in terms of cfdisk and fdisk.  parted may handle
> all this nicely already.
>
> >     There's no real need to create an "image".  I thought it would
> >     be nice to use some existing tools.  I've decided to keep it
> >     simple and
> >     go with a "deep" copy of all the files and create two archives for
> >     hda2
> >     and hda3.  This is the general idea:
> >
> > *snip*
> >
> > I was just thinking to myself....wouldn't it be easier to to the
> > following:
> >
> > 1.  Write a bash script to do the partitioning.  You can pass the
> > device (/dev/hdc, etc) as a parameter, and the bash script will call
> > parted to do the partitioning.
> > 2.  Mount the DSL ISO
> > 3.  Using the previous bash script (and it's argument), have the
> > script automate the running dsl-hdinstall.
> I like most of this, especially use of the ISO image for easy updates.
> btw, we can python, bash, ruby, whatever.  I only suggested Python
> because I already have some stuff that could be easily modified to do
> most of what we want.
> > This has several advantages:
> > 1.  Other than writing the script, no manual labor has to be done (ie,
> > creating the "deep copy")
> The only reason for the deep copy is that we have customized the
> interface.  On a frugal install, this includes different desktop
> backgrounds in hidden folders, the mydsl extensions (extra apps), and
> anything else in the /opt folder.  We are also planning to include grub
> 0.97.  The version that comes with DSL by default doesn't include
> splashimages.  We can use the host OS's (ubuntu) version of grub to
> write to the MBR to write to the MBR.
>
> > 2.  Older and new versions of DSL can be used, simply by downloading
> > the ISO and calling it's "dsl-hdinstall" script.  You could write the
> > script to either look to a certain mount location (/media/dsl), ask
> > for the location of the mounted DSL ISO, or ask for the ISO image
> > location so that it could mount it for the user.
> Yes!  I really like this idea of mounting the ISO image to get the main
> DSL files.  Not so sure about the benefits using their scripts as-is.
> We may have to modify them quite a bit.  One problem Jim and I noticed
> with their scripts is they changed from version 3.x to 4.x.  Not sure if
> it's isolated to just those major versions.  I suppose if we stick with
> DSL 3.x we'll be safe.
>
> > 3.  Once the script finishes executing, we could have it call other
> > sub-scripts to do different types of special configs.  Ie, this batch
> > of HDs needs a few non-default apps, so InstallDSL.sh will then call
> > Installxx.sh , passing it all of the needed arguments, thus preventing
> > any further user interaction and saving time.
> OK.  My reply to 1. above goes to some of this.
>
> My main concern is automating the creation of the partitions via a
> script.  I've already tried it manually from the command line and it
> failed in ways I can't comprehend.  If we can do this, everything will
> be easy.  As you already suggested, just reuse many of the scripts
> already provided by DSL and we're golden :)  Here's what I was doing
> manually with 'parted' from the command line:
>
> ## Start by removing all partitions and the MBR:
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1
>
> ## Create the partitions usign parted
> parted --script /dev/sdb mklabel msdos
> parted --script /dev/sdb mkpartfs primary linux-swap 1 64
> parted --script /dev/sdb mkpartfs primary ext2 65 125
> parted --script /dev/sdb set 2 boot on
> parted --script /dev/sdb mkpartfs primary ext2 125 325   <--- normally
> this will be (disksize-usedspace) to use all of the disk
>
> This turned the partition table into a toxic soup.  This is what fdisk
> shows on a table print out:
>
> Disk /dev/sdb: 6007 MB, 6007357440 bytes
> 185 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1022 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 11470 * 512 = 5872640 bytes
>
>   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sdb1               1          11       62500   82  Linux swap /
> Solaris
> Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
>     phys=(7, 199, 9) logical=(10, 166, 9)
> Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
> /dev/sdb2   *          11          22       59570   83  Linux
> Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
>     phys=(7, 199, 10) logical=(10, 166, 10)
> Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
>     phys=(15, 50, 16) logical=(21, 52, 47)
> Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
> /dev/sdb3              22          56      195312+  83  Linux
> Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
>     phys=(15, 50, 17) logical=(21, 52, 48)
> Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
>     phys=(39, 130, 41) logical=(55, 63, 10)
> Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
>
>
> I'm sure it has something to do with the start and end points and
> partitions sizes.  Maybe there's a simple fix.  If there is, we just
> dump it into mix of bash scripts and we're done :)
>
> -kevin
>
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