Automatic Clone of Ubuntu systems

[alipsius]

Hi all,



I have had some good experiences using ghost to clone linux disks and
even Mac OS disks. I am an MCSE and reseller/System builder and have
been working on various builds of Linux (Linspire, Ubuntu/Xubuntu/SuSe)
to standardize on which one to install on computers for my clients. In
all the testing I have done Ubuntu Breezy seems to be the most stable,
easiest for end users to use, and easiest to support.



Using Bart PE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/), I have been able to boot
from the Bart PE cd, and using Ghost 8.0 Enterprise, image the entire
drive or individual partitions to any of the following destinations:



a) Windows 2000/Windows 2003

b) and external USB hard drive or external FireWire hard drive 

(FAT32 or NTFS if the resulting image file must be bigger than 4GB,
which

is seldom since I also burn the images to a set  of DVD's, for
doing 

system restores in the field)

c) Mac OS X Samba shared folder

d) Mac OS X Server shared folder

e) a secondary drive installed in the machine which is having the first
hard drive imaged.



I have also successfully pulled the images down from the above, to a
destination machine, without failure 100% of the time.



I too have looked at other solutions that are out there, but for the
ease of use, this has been the most reliable and the most repeatable.



It takes a little while to build the Bart PE boot disc, and you need to
have all the software installed to be able to access the needed files to
create the structure that will render your ISO image file, but once that
is done, it's up and away.....



Back when I worked in the corporate space, we had a DOS boot floppy
that would log in to the server, map the appropriate drives, and then
run a batch file that launched ghost and pulled down the required image
(selected from a menu).



I have looked at making such a similar script for the Bart PE cd, but
as of late I have not been able to carve out the time to do it, so I
have to do that part manually.



If you read about the Bart PE cd, you will see how easy it is. And no,
I am not in any way affiliated with Bart PE, just a happy user of his
program.


-- 
alipsius