[K12OSN] OT - disk clone over network

[Les Mikesell]

rmcdaniel at indata.us wrote:
> Can anyone recommend an application that I can use to take a good image 
> of a laptop and clone other laptops across the network?  I have been 
> trying to use DRBL with no luck.  I can't get the clients that boot from 
> the network using PXE to see the server and boot.

If you don't mind it taking a long time and the disks are all identical, 
boot your master with a knoppix CD or the install CD in rescue mode and:
dd if=/dev/hda | ssh server 'cat >/path/to/image_name'
the on the clones:
ssh server 'cat < /path/to/image_name' |dd of=hda
(note that this will destroy anything currently on the disk).

You might be able to use the clonezilla live CD to do the same thing but 
faster since it knows a little bit about the filesystem structure and 
doesn't need to copy unused space: http://clonezilla.sourceforge.net/. 
If you have a lot of machines it might be worth setting up the multicast 
mode infrastructure but if you can't PXE boot the installer it might not 
work anyway.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com