[Ubuntu PA] Disk Imaging Solutions

[Brian Stempin]

Just a bit of an update:

1.  I was able to repartition a USB disk without having to power cycle or
eject/inject using parted.
2.  I was able script the creation of partitions.

A little more on Item 2:
I'm currently writing a full-fledged script to handle partitioning.  I'm
currently working on the error handling and input sanitation.  There is,
however, one thing that I have yet to figure out.  When parted creates a
partition, it requires a begin and end point.  I have yet to find a way to
tell it to just use the rest of the remaining space.  I have an idea of how
to solve this, but it's going to require some leg-work on my part.

I'll update the thread as I make progress.

On Jan 24, 2008 2:09 PM, Brian Stempin <brian.stempin at gmail.com> wrote:

>  > 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
> >
> > --
> > Ubuntu-us-pa mailing list
> > Ubuntu-us-pa at lists.ubuntu.com
> > Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-pa
> >
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-us-pa/attachments/20080127/9bb2d7b3/attachment.htm