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Release of 0.26 version - Shortly
by msetzerii - Jul 5th 2008 07:10:28
Getting ready to release 0.26, and here is pretty much what I have at the
moment.
ftp://amd64gcc.dyndns.org/g4l-v0.26.iso
ftp://amd64gcc.dyndns.org/g4l-v0.26.devel.tar.gz
Wasn't originally planning on releasing a version while I was in the
states on Summer Break, but a few users have had issues where the 0.26
alpha worked
The changes between 0.25 and 0.26 are:
Latest changes with 0.26a
added mdev as hotplug program
updated ntfs-3g
kernel 25.9
busybox 1.11.0 with patches to 7/02/2008
g4l30 script that shows partition size and type
added sfdisk and fsck programs.
added ifcheck script by dan.s@hostdime.com to recognize
multiple eth devices and activate the first that gets a
link for systems where eth0 is not the default.
Updated syslinux from 3.55 to 3.63
kernel 25.10 (added last minute untested)
The changes to the g4l script itself are minor, and mainly just the use of
the results of the ifcheck script to use the nic that gets an IP from dhcp
instead of defaulting to eth0. The busybox adn kernel updates are the
biggest. A little clean up on files, but did forget to change the 0.26a to
0.26 in the latest there, but that is all I can think of at the moment. If
no comments on these version by Monday, I will go thru the process of doing
the update on Sourceforge and Freshmeat, and it should shortly become the
official released version.
Thank You.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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g4l randomly stops during network back up
by Simon - Jul 2nd 2008 20:37:10
Hi!
I'm trying to use g4l to back up a 2 GB flash disk connected to the IDE
interface as hdc (with dma deactivated using the kernel paramter
ide=nodma). The flash disk is the main system disk, and I've booted from a
g4l cd through an attached USB cdrom drive.
I'm trying to back up to an ftp server (FileZilla Server) on my main
Windows machine, using raw-mode without compression (both machines are on a
local 100 Mbps network, with a router and a switch as the only other
equipment). However, the transfer seems to simply stop at random after a
while. It simply stops. It is still showing up as connected on the ftp
server, and I can cancel the operation with Ctrl-C.
Does anyone have a solution to this? - or maybe just an idea where the
problem could be?
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Re: g4l randomly stops during network back up
by msetzerii - Jul 2nd 2008 20:55:00
A couple of things to try?
1. Right before starting the Backup
Ctrl-Alt F2 to open another terminal
login with g4l
run top to watch what is happening.
Ctrl-Alt F1 to switch to original window
Start Backup
Ctrl-Alt F2 to monitor top, and see what is going on.
I would also suggest using lzop, since it is usually faster then no
compression. The network is generally slower than the drives, so it will be
faster if that is where the problem occurs. With a 100MB boot partition,
lzop would take 3 seconds, gzip was 6 seconds, and none was 10 seconds, and
bzip was 18 seconds.
2. You didn't mention exactly which version you are using, but another
user recently had an issue with a usb device, and the latest alpha version
seemed to fix it. Not sure if it was the kernel, or the busybox updates.
I'm currently 7 timezones from my machines, so making versions to isolate
what exactly fixed it isn't time effective.
ftp://amd64gcc.dyndns.org/g4l-v0.26alpha8.iso
Is the latest version, and will probable be released shortly, was planning
to wait till I get back, but that will not be until the 30th of July.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: g4l randomly stops during network back up
by Simon - Jul 2nd 2008 21:24:46
Thank you for the quick response:)
I'm using the newest release version - v0.25 from SourceForge, and the
default kernel (with the added ide=nodma parameter).
I tried using lzop, but got the same result as with no compression.
Looking at the output from top, all processes simply stop at 0% cpu
utilization.
I'll try out the new alpha though... Currently downloading...
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Re: g4l randomly stops during network back up
by Simon - Jul 2nd 2008 22:09:24
The new alpha version did the trick - now works perfectly! Thanks:)
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Re: g4l randomly stops during network back up
by msetzerii - Jul 2nd 2008 23:40:08
Thanks for taking the time to test it, and post a response.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Bug in Server Mode Launch
by rpacheco - Jun 11th 2008 18:21:51
Hi Just to communicate that in VMWARE for windows after configuring the
server its said that would be launch but nothing happens just the menu
appear. Thanks in advance.
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Re: Bug in Server Mode Launch
by rpacheco - Jun 11th 2008 18:24:39
> Hi Just to communicate that in VMWARE
> for windows after configuring the server
> its said that would be launch but
> nothing happens just the menu appear.
> Thanks in advance.
Sorry I forgot to mention that i was using g4l 2.4 and everything was fine
the problem appear to be with this new reales 2.5.
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Re: Bug in Server Mode Launch
by msetzerii - Jun 13th 2008 16:17:32
Unfortunately, I don't have a VMWARE system setup. So, to try and isolate
where the problem is.
If you boot from the 0.25 g4l and use the previous kernel instead of the
default does it have the problem. If not, then it is in the new kernel?
After booting from the 0.25 g4l what does the /proc/partitions have and
what does dmesg have.
cat /proc/partitions >output1
dmesg >output2
then use ncftp to upload the files.
Do the same with 0.24, and see if something is different.
Could also check what the contents of the /dev directory has. I don't
think I changed to the mdev until 0.26, but might be in there.
Finally, have started working on 0.26, and have an alpha4 of it.
ftp://amd64gcc.dyndns.org/g4l-v0.26alpha4.iso
Might be that it has already fixed the problem, but don't have the VMWARE
environment to test it.
Additionally, for June and July, I am in the states on Summer Vacation, so
am 8 time zones away from my computers so only have vnc access. So, updates
and testing are a lot more involved. Would be interested in discovering
what exactly changed to cause the problem. The g4l had minimal changes, it
is the support programs that changed but not that much.
Thanks for the feedback.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: Bug in Server Mode Launch
by rpacheco - Jun 16th 2008 14:47:17
Hi sorry to inform that the bug still on alpha version 2.6. You don't need
to have vmware to prove it. I made my lab on a regular machine with the cd.
The error appear in the exact moment that you hit the launch server button.
You receive the confirmation to the server mode but after that the
application return to the menu not to the waiting connection list.
We're on File Mode, we pick the device eth0, then configure the device
(assign ip), select the partition to /mnt/local, everything still the same,
like always, the same steps, no problem on that, then on the last step to
Launch Server it fail. It seems to fail not just with the last kernel build
image but with all.
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Re: Bug in Server Mode Launch
by msetzerii - Jun 16th 2008 15:42:47
Are talking about the partimage server, since there isn't a server as part
of g4l other than that. The previous author had put that on the cd, and I
had only updated the files since that is another project.
My systems are lvm, which it doesn't support, so I haven't played with it
at all. Well have to check that out.
Thanks again.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: Bug in Server Mode Launch
by rpacheco - Jun 16th 2008 18:00:28
Yes we're talking about the partimage server! It began to fail since 2.5
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Re: Bug in Server Mode Launch
by msetzerii - Jun 16th 2008 19:04:50
I did some test, and it appears that it is looking for a user partimag that
it wants to be created?
If you run the partimaged command at the command prompt, it will show the
error message about not having the partimag user?
I have made no changes from 0.24 to 0.25 with this, so not sure if it is a
change in the kernel that brought this up, or with the new busybox?
I'm also not sure how the server option would be used from the cd, since
it only creates a 64M ram disk.
I was always under the ideal that someone would run the server on a
regular linux system like the ftp, and have the client boot from the cd to
backup other systems.
Again, since my systems all have LVM, which don't allow file read access
from the g4l, it wasn't an issue I could do a lot with.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: Bug in Server Mode Launch
by msetzerii - Jun 16th 2008 23:54:45
Actually my bad...
Actually, I had changed the partimage files. I found the fedora had newer
versions or I build newer version, and didn't note that the compile options
were different. In doing a comparison with the partimaged -i of both, it
shows the differences.
I created an alpha5 that has the 0.24 version back, will have to figure
out how to compile with those same options. The versions are just a little
different, so better to have an older version that works than a newer one
that doesn't.
ftp://amd64gcc.dyndns.org/g4l-v0.26alpha5.iso
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Restore issue.
by breezely - May 30th 2008 20:04:43
I'v created a raw lzop partition backup and restored it to a vmware
partition of a larger size using raw mode over ftp. I noticed after a few
failed attempts of running mkinitrd that not all the files and folders in
/proc and /sys were restored. Not sure why this is happening or how to
prevent this from happening.
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Re: Restore issue.
by breezely - Jun 2nd 2008 11:20:28
> I'v created a raw lzop partition backup
> and restored it to a vmware partition of
> a larger size using raw mode over ftp. I
> noticed after a few failed attempts of
> running mkinitrd that not all the files
> and folders in /proc and /sys were
> restored. Not sure why this is happening
> or how to prevent this from happening.
My bad, te /proc and /sys directories I was looking at were not from the
backup image.
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g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - May 22nd 2008 12:13:27
Hi Im new to linux in general and havent been able to get g4l to work off a
dvd (mount the dvd but cant choose it as a source) so I was wondering how I
would go about adding wireless support to my boot disk as I have no wired
network in the lab. It seems like g4l is mainly geared towards being used
over a network...
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by msetzerii - May 23rd 2008 03:01:03
Two issues. G4L doesn't run from a DVD, it is a cd image.
Make sure to download the iso file, and burn it to a CD-R or CD-RW as an
ISO image.
Then you can boot from that CD, and see if it recognizes your hardware. I
haven't used it with wireless cards, but if they are supported by the
kernel.org kernel, they should work. Ones requiring special drivers or
ndiswrapper would not
G4L does do network imaging, but also has an option for local imaging,
that can use other partition or other drivers to back up images to as well.
On could connected an external USB drive, and create an image file on
that.
The development kit is the source files, for the project to allow others
to make whatever modifications they might like, or to just see what it is
made of. The ISO is what is required to run the program. It is setup as a
CD image, but the kernel file and ramdisk.gz can be extracted to have it
run from a bootloader like grub, or boot from a flash drive.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - May 23rd 2008 11:17:59
sorry - didnt explain that very well - I have no problems running g4l - I
have the cd burnt and working fine. I have also managed to create an image
and have then burnt that to a dvd - what I couldnt do is choose the dvd as
a source after I had booted up with g4l - I mounted the drive but no
options appeared to select that drive as a source. any tricks to that?
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by msetzerii - May 24th 2008 01:33:23
OK. Point of Clarification
What is the dev for the dvd?
Are you using the local copy menu?
Option A: on the local copy menu doesn't show the device?
Option A: on the local option, should mount the device to the /mnt/local
directory, but if it doesn't. Try mounting the dvd to that point before
running the script, and see if the other options work.
I've used external USB drives with disk but have not tried with a DVD, but
don't see where there would be a difference.
If this doesn't provide a solution, could you specify exactly which option
you are taking in the process, since there are a number of sub menus and
choices in the program to make sure we are on the same page.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - May 26th 2008 11:09:19
/dev/hda is dvd.
I am using Raw>Local>Option A
Under Option A there is no /mnt/local option - only sda, sda1, sda3 etc.
I manually mounted it to /mnt/local but it still doesnt show up in the
menu.
what now?
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by msetzerii - May 26th 2008 13:28:10
The listing of disk and partitions comes from the /proc/partitions.
Do you have the dvd in the drive at boot time?
ftp://amd64gcc.dyndns.org/g4l-v0.26alpha2.iso
Is a new system, but is mostly some minor things so far. It does have mdev
added to the busybox, and I'm not sure if installing the dvd and then
running mdev -s would then add it to the /proc/partitions.
On another note: If you manually mount the DVD correct partition to the
/mnt/local you should then be able to see the image file on
/mnt/local.
ls /mnt/local
You could then run the g4l and then just skip the A option, since it has
already been mounted.
The /mnt/local is where option A: mounts the partition, but isn't an
option.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - May 27th 2008 12:57:47
I am booting up from the G4L bootdisk in the DVD drive, then removing it,
inserting the DVD containing the image file and trying to use it as my
source. I can mount it to /mnt/local and I can browse to that directory and
can see the image file listed.
When I run G4L I believe that there are 3 options I should be selecting -
A, B & F.
A - should be the location of the source image
B - the filename
F - Restore - should select the partition to restore to and then
start the process.
If I skip option A as you suggested then when I go to F it tells me -
ERROR - No target drive set!
This seems to imply that option A is actually setting the target - and
this is confusing because it does say
A: Pick drive - target/source partition for IMAGE file
Now I assumed that it chose whether it was the target or the source
depending on whether you were backing up or restoring. Then when I select
restore it should ask me for the target drive.
Is this not correct?? nothing else seems to make sense.
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by msetzerii - May 27th 2008 14:11:50
The script checks that the drive has been selected, so the variable needs
to be set.
Use option S:
export localdrive=hda1
That will then set the variable to the correct partitions, and then should
allow the option to work, since the variable will be set
You should see after the A: option.
You could also do the mount with the S: option
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - May 29th 2008 09:48:39
well, I set the local drive to hda1 that way and it then lets me use the
restore command and I choose the target partition - sda5
it starts to restore the image... and then stops, saying 100% complete but
nothing has actually been done
OK - just sorted something out I think... I noticed that my image file had
been saved in CAPS on the DVD. When I entered it in CAPS in Option B it
worked... Is this normal, or could it have something to do with me using a
turkish keyboard?
BUT...... it has stopped aat 98.51% complete...
what now?
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by msetzerii - May 29th 2008 11:04:56
Stopping before 100% generally means the destination partition or drive is
not as big as the image. In my lab, I have 20 identical machines. But one
systems hard disk reports it being 3 tracks less than the others? So, I use
that machine to make my images, since you can copy a smaller image to a
larger one. They have to be exactly the same size or larger. Also, how the
tracks / sectors are worked out might give a different size, since some
things are track centered. I would compare the physical information on the
original disk/partition, and the new disk/partition.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - May 29th 2008 12:05:14
ok, thats what I was looking at as well - I thought Id set the partitions
to be the same, but if I just set the destination partition slightly bigger
it should be fine I guess. Will try and then give feedback
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - Jun 2nd 2008 09:30:09
OK I managed to complete the imaging process, but on reboot I get an error
- could not find /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA........part5
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - Jun 2nd 2008 09:44:18
do I need to recreate /etc/fstab? I notice it is missing...
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by msetzerii - Jun 3rd 2008 12:58:53
The g4l does an image copy, so everything that was on the original should
be there on the copy. If you have moved it to different type of hardware,
it doesn't match, and some new version are using UID instead of the mount
points.
What was in the original /etc/fstab, and is it completely missing from the
copy, or does it have missing lines?
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - Jun 5th 2008 12:21:23
Well, the whole point of this process is to be able to create a working
image for my lab of 15 identical latops (supposedly identical, maybe some
of the hardware is slightly different) that I can use to reimage if they
die...
anyway, when I try to boot up I get the error message I mentioned - which
seems to be saying that it cant find the partition - made me think of a MBR
problem, or a problem with /etc/fstab but when I checked for it it is
completely missing... in fact their are only a handful of files in the etc
directory at all .... is it possible the image file is corrupted? should I
start the whole process from scratch?
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - Jun 6th 2008 11:56:12
OK this seems to be something to do with using a SATA drive - they are
uniquely identified in the /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/menu.lst
I am playing around with altering these on the imaged machine - still not
working but I think Im on the right track
probably need to erase the unique identifiers from the source machine
BEFORE imaging - then shouldnt have this problem each time I try to image a
machine.
these pages have good info about this
http://www.suseforums.net/index.php?showtopic=45832
http://www.novell.com/support/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=7000134&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_TID_1_1
If I get it sorted will post feedback
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by msetzerii - Jun 8th 2008 10:41:03
I've heard about this use of the UID, but not clear on where it exactly
comes from. If one does a full disk image are they the same, or is it part
of the physical hard disk?
I had a similar issue with the nic card after a recent upgrade of Fedora
8. Before that I could image the machines, and everything was fine on the
cloned machines in the lab. Then it started creating the cloned images with
eth1 instead of eth0. Even thou I had told it not to bind the MAC. Ended up
I had to delete the ifcfg.eth0 from the machine before doing an image. Then
all the clones would configure the nic as eth0. But the original machine
would then not configure the nic on the first boot.
Thanks for the info, and do you have what it puts in the grub.conf and the
fstab?
Don't know if removing the files would have it automatically recreate them
or not.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - Jun 10th 2008 11:34:04
Great success!!!
edited the menu.lst and fstab on the original machine as mentioned in the
novell article, now when I image the new machine, it boots up perfectly,
just need to change the network settings and it should be rocking!
cheers mate
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by msetzerii - Jun 11th 2008 10:19:14
Glad to hear it worked out.
I'll check out the link, and add a mention to it in the latest file. Need
to work on the documentation thou, but that is not what I like working
on.
Currently in the states for the summer, so all work is done via vnc to my
servers in Guam.
Thanks for the reply.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by amkearin - Jun 12th 2008 10:15:23
just when you think its all ok.....
As I said, everything worked ok on the first machine I tried to clone to.
But now I have tried on two other identical laptops, when I try to start
the image process I get the message "Input file is not an image (invalid
magic)" This is the same file I have successfully used to clone another
laptop... Whats going on???
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Re: g4l over wireless?
by msetzerii - Jun 13th 2008 18:26:16
There are two things that might be the problem.
First, it the lap tops drive is even a little smaller than the original
machines drive. I've got a lab of 20 identical machines, but one machines
drive reports it as being 26M smaller than the other 19. All the exact same
make and model. So, I have to use that machine to make the image.
Second option could be bad ram in this notebook. The imaging puts a load
on the ram, and makes use of all of it (as far as I now). I had a brand new
server, and when creating an image on it, it would fail, but on another
machine it would work fine. Did a comparison of the image file and found
they were different. Then ran memtest and it went thru the first 7 test
with no errors, but then on the 8th test, it had the exact same error
pattern.
Machine had two ram sticks, so pulled out one, and the test ran with no
error. Then swapped the rams, and got the errors again, so that one stick
was flaky. With half the ram, it made the image fine, and the vendor
replaced the ram, and everything was fine.
Those are the only two things that I have seen. You might try booting from
the linux rescue cd, and see what it sees.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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can not run on attansic L2
by shinichi - May 20th 2008 03:58:27
i install g4l and it run already but when i use it for mainboard have
attansic L2 network it don't work. And I have driver for attansic L2
network how to add it on kernel g4l. Need to help
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Re: can not run on attansic L2
by msetzerii - May 20th 2008 10:52:02
The ATL2 is not yet included in the kernel.org kernel source. There is the
ATL1, and the ATLX now that is the beginning of adding the ATL2, but not
there yet.
https://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_id=2006773&forum_id=408763
The above is a discussion from sourceforge on this same driver. It might
be possible to create a .ko file that matches one of the kernels, and it
might load manually, but I don't have access to any system that has this
nic.
I did create a test iso but never had someone download or test it. It has
atlx, which may or may not support the atl2.
ftp://amd64gcc.dyndns.org/atlx.iso
There seems to be action at adding support to the kernel, and others have
it added already, but it is hard to test without having the nic available.
Hopefully, the information from sourceforge will help.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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g4l 0.25 alpha 18 - Last before release??
by msetzerii - May 6th 2008 02:12:00
I put up a message on the 0.25 alpha 15 trying to get feedback, but only
had a few downloads of it, and some of 16 and 17 with no annoucement, but
no feedback good or bad.
Here are the changes listed.
Latest changes with 0.25
Moved development system from Fedora 5 to 8
Updated busybox to 1.10.1 (with patches to May 2)
Added telnetd program
Newer kernels
fixed missing lib for name resolution
moved dd, gzip and gunzip to busybox becuase of problem with
gunzip restore with the gunzip from Fedora 8 version.
compiled jetcat-mod with latest new system.
add bs=1M to dd commands in local menu (fix over 100% problem)
added autostart telnetd if kernel parameter telnetd=yes
added timeout 30 option to startup messages
added g4lmenu to show options
cleaned /dev directory to just console and raid subdirectories
use busybox mdev to dynamically create /dev entries
Added file list to local copy option like F: option on network
ftp://amd64gcc.dyndns.org/g4l-v0.25alpha18.iso
ftp://amd64gcc.dyndns.org/g4l-v0.25alpha18.devel.tar.gz
If no comments, will probable release it soon. I moved to using busybox
mdev to create device nods.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Unable to mount root
by tommeke7 - Apr 29th 2008 04:04:55
Hi,
I've put burned g4l just in linux with makecd on a cd-rom. But I get an
error while trying to start it.
On the menu, I pick the latest kernel version and here everything is
loading till I get this message:
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Unable to load NLS charset utf8
List of all partitions:
0300 39082680 hda driver: ide-disk
0301 104391 hda1
0302 38957625 hda2
1600 40025916 hdc driver: ide-disk
1601 40025916 hdc1
1640 41358 hdd driver: ide-cdrom
No filesystem could mount root, tried: reiserfs ext3 ext2 msdos vfat
iso9660 ntfs romfs fuseblk
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
unknown-block(1,0)
And here it hangs ..
Both hard disks are ext3 partitions .. And I guess the cd-rom gives the
error, but this has the standart fs given by makecd .. So what can be wrong
here?
thx,
Tom
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[»]
Re: Unable to mount root
by msetzerii - Apr 29th 2008 07:41:42
A couple of things.
First, when you use the makecd script, you must do so as root, and also
when you extact the development kit, otherwise, certain files are not
created.
./makecd create
will create the boot.iso file, which can then be burned to the cd as an
iso image.
cdrecord -v dev=/dev/hdc boot.iso
or
cdrecord -v blank=fast dev=/dev/hdc boot.iso
That assumes you cd is /dev/hdc
First is for a cd-r, second is cd-rw.
Did you modify the files to burn the image?
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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[»]
Re: Unable to mount root
by tommeke7 - Apr 29th 2008 08:30:01
I didn't use the development kid and did not modify any of the files.
The command that I used was the example in makecd itself, which makes the
iso and writes it to cd-r:
"sudo ./makecd /dev/cdwriter"
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[»]
Re: Unable to mount root
by msetzerii - Apr 29th 2008 22:09:42
What did you use to burn the iso image to the cd?
It must be burned as an ISO image and not as a file.
I've used the cdrecorder and k3b with linux, and nero with windows.
You mentioned makecd in the original message, and there is a makecd script
in the development kit, so that is why I thought you were using it. The
g4l.iso file is a cd image, and needs to be burned as such to a cd-r or
cd-rw.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
[reply]
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[»]
Re: Unable to mount root
by tommeke7 - Apr 30th 2008 05:56:30
Indeed, I made a mistake .. I just downloaded the tar file from
http://freshmeat.net/projects/g4l/ and it was the development file..
However I did not change anything to the script or the rest so I don't get
why it didn't work..
It doesn't matter however.. I downloaded the ISO file, burned it with k3b
and it's perfectly working! Now just testing everything a bit out :)
Thx for your responses!
Tom
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[»]
Please Help: Clone Small HD to Larger HD Using G4L V0.24
by KevinLuu - Apr 11th 2008 13:37:22
Hi,
I used G4L version v0.24 to clone 80GB HD to 120GB HD.
The Cloning process was successful.
I can used the new 120GB to boot the system. But when i checked the
capacity it only show 80GB instead of 120GB.
How can i solve this problem when using G4L to clone small HD to larger HD
so that the full capacity of the larger HD is seen after clone.
Thank you very much.
Kevin Luu
[reply]
[top]
[»]
Re: Please Help: Clone Small HD to Larger HD Using G4L V0.24
by msetzerii - Apr 11th 2008 17:13:28
The g4l doesn't do on the fly resize of the partition, but copies it as is.
You can then use programs like gparted or other programs to expand the
partition, or just create another partition with the extra space. The exact
options depend on the OS you are using. The exception to this, is if you
have done an NTFSCLONE backup of an ntfs partition. In which case you would
have had to create the partition before restoring the backup. The same
thing would then happen, in that if you did an ntfsclone backup of a 40GB
partition, and restored it to a 100GB partition, it would still be a 40GB
partition, but you could then run the ntfsresize program on the cd with the
partition.
ntfsresize /dev/hda1
And it would increase the size to use the whole partition.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
[reply]
[top]
[»]
Re: Please Help: Clone Small HD to Larger HD Using G4L V0.24
by KevinLuu - Apr 11th 2008 21:59:49
Thank you very much for your help.
I was praticing using G4L to clone 80GB HD containing XP OS to and old
120GB HD to see how G4L works.
After discovering this issue about cloning small HD to larger HD i then
decided to use the same size hard disks for cloning (This is my first time
to do cloning. And i am pretty new to computer and Linux OS. I know XP OS
as casual user).
My real task at this time in the company is using G4L to clone a 250GB HD
containing Fedora 4 OS for back-up ( The person who handled this task had
left the company. He was the only one that knew Linux OS in the comapny).
Using the same G4L version CD, the same PC and the same hardware setup, I
repeated the same steps that i did earlier in pratice to clone 250GB HD
containing Fedora 4 Linux OS to an old 250GB HD also containing Fedora 4
Linux OS for backup purpose.
However this time, after about 0.76% completed, i saw many error messages
displayed on the screen.
I am not sure why this happened with 250GB HD containing Linux OS. So i
used Ctrl-C to stop the cloning process. This problem was repeatable with
250GB HD.
Howver i did not see when i cloned 80GB HD (contains XP OS) to 120GB HD
ealier in my pratice.
Do you why this problem only occurred with 250GB HD to 250GB HD cloning?.
Can G4L version V0.24 be used to clone HD with the size 250GB or larger?.
Again. Thank you very much.
Kevin Luu
[reply]
[top]
[»]
Re: Please Help: Clone Small HD to Larger HD Using G4L V0.24
by KevinLuu - Apr 12th 2008 07:49:53
> Hi,
>
> I used G4L version v0.24 to clone 80GB
> HD to 120GB HD.
>
> The Cloning process was successful.
>
> I can used the new 120GB to boot the
> system. But when i checked the capacity
> it only show 80GB instead of 120GB.
>
> How can i solve this problem when using
> G4L to clone small HD to larger HD so
> that the full capacity of the larger HD
> is seen after clone.
>
> Thank you very much.
>
> Kevin Luu
>
>
Thank you very much for your help.
I was praticing using G4L to clone 80GB HD containing XP OS to and old
120GB HD to see how G4L works. After discovering this issue about cloning
small HD to larger HD i then decided to use the same size hard disks for
cloning (This is my first time to do cloning. And i am pretty new to
computer and Linux OS. I know XP OS as casual user).
My real task at this time in the company is using G4L to clone a 250GB HD
containing Fedora 4 OS for back-up ( The person who handled this task had
left the company. He was the only one that knew Linux OS in the comapny).
Using the same G4L version CD, the same PC and the same hardware setup, I
repeated the same steps that i did earlier in pratice to clone 250GB HD
containing Fedora 4 Linux OS to an old 250GB HD also containing Fedora 4
Linux OS for backup purpose.
However this time, after about 0.76% completed, i saw many error messages
displayed on the screen. I am not sure why this happened with 250GB HD
containing Linux OS. So i used Ctrl-C to stop the cloning process. This
problem was repeatable with 250GB HD.
Howver i did not see when i cloned 80GB HD (contains XP OS) to 120GB HD
ealier in my pratice. Do you why this problem only occurred with 250GB HD
to 250GB HD cloning?. Can G4L version V0.24 be used to clone HD with the
size 250GB or larger?.
Thank you very much.
Kevin Luu
[reply]
[top]
[»]
Re: Please Help: Clone Small HD to Larger HD Using G4L V0.24
by msetzerii - Apr 12th 2008 09:24:44
Can you be specific on what options you are using to do the image. Is it a
network backup or local backup or click and clone?
After any failure, it is best to check the files in the /tmp directory to
see what the error is? Ctrl-Alt F2 to open a second terminal, and log in
with g4l id. Then look at the files in the /tmp directory, and see what
they might list as the error.
Also, what does /proc/partitions show on the drives? Do the have the same
number of heads and tracks per sectors. This generally wouldn't matter on
the copy, but sometimes cause problems with booting especially with
windows.
Also, have you checked the disk for hard errors, but rather than guessing,
checking the above first would be the best step. I have imaged large
drives, and have done dual 250GB drives in my main machine, and have 250,
300, and larger drives in my servers that backup with no problem.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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[»]
Stuck at 0%
by Simon Bowen - Apr 11th 2008 08:20:33
Hi
I have been having problems with G4L. Heres the story. I have 20+ Asus EEE
PCs that I need to install a custom OS on.
I couldn't use the ISO on a CD since the Asus EEE doesn't have a CD drive
(and I have no USB CD Drive). So I managed to get G4L to boot from a USB
Pen Drive. The next problem was that G4L didn't have the Atheros L2 Network
Drivers bundled with it.
Instead I booted the system with "System Rescue CD" (on a pen
drive), this has the correct network drivers, and then manually ran the g4u
scripts from the /rootfs folder created when the sources is untarred.
The problem I am having is that the progress does not move from 0%. G4L
creates the "img" file on my FTP server. But with nothing in. It
appears as though there are no permissions set on this folder, is this
correct? I am logging into the FTP server in G4L using the root
privileges.
Also whilst it is suppose to be making the image the hard drive light
shows no activity. Could the problem be that the Asus EEE PC uses a SS hard
drive?!
Any help would be appreciated very much!
Thanks Simon
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[»]
Use G4L clone small HD to large HD
by KevinLuu - Apr 11th 2008 13:32:47
Hi,
I used G4L version v0.24 to clone 80GB HD to 120GB HD.
The Cloning process was successful.
I can used the new 120GB to boot the system.
But when i checked the capacity it only show 80GB instead of 120GB.
How can i solve this problem when using G4L to clone small HD to larger HD
so that the full capacity of the larger HD is seen after clone.
Thank you very muck.
Kevin Luu
[reply]
[top]
[»]
Re: Stuck at 0%
by msetzerii - Apr 11th 2008 17:25:51
The problem that you are seeing is that the jetcat-mod program is not in
the path, and it is used in the process to pipe the data thru and create
the status of what is going on.
You can simple copy the jetcat-mod program to one of the directories in
your path, and then it would find it.
I have a setup that allowed for running g4l from other boot media like a
Knoppix livecd, in which you would boot from that media, and then download
the g4l programs.
ftp ftp://amd64gcc.dyndns.org/files4.gz
tar -zxvf files4.gz
./g4l
That file contains the files that g4l needs, and may not be on the media
used to boot. It places the current directory in the path, so it can find
the files. These are older versions of the files, and don't contain some of
the newer options, but for the standard imaging it is basically the
same.
Additionally, what method does you media use to boot. If it is using
syslinux, you could also just copy the bz24.x kernel or whatever you want
to use, and the ramdisk.gz file to the boot directory, and add the lines
the the syslinux.cfg file. I've done this with a flash, but in that case I
just copied the contents of the CD to the flash, and then ran syslinux on
it to make it bootable. The only other change was to copy the isolinux.cfg
to the syslinux.cfg.
Again, coping the jetcat-mod to a directory in the path would be the
quickest solution, but the others would give you access to other things as
well. One other note, I'm assuming it has the ncftp files and lzop on the
drive, and it not, you would also have to copy those programs as well.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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[»]
Re: Stuck at 0%
by Simon Bowen - Apr 14th 2008 03:33:20
Hi
Thanks for the reply. I turns out that the reason it was stuck at 0% was
that the img folder on the FTP server hadn't had its permissions set
correctly.
Now I am having problems restoring the image I have created. I am getting
errors with stdin telling me it is not an lzop file.
So I have attempted the method you suggested about downloading the file
over FTP and extract them. This initially works well. But once again the
Backup process is stuck at 0%. The "img" file on the ftp server has the
right permissions. And jetcat-mod is all there!?!?!?!
The reason I am booting into system rescue CD first is because they have
the NETWORK drivers loaded. Whereas G4L hasn't the network drivers for my
hard ware bundled with it.n
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[»]
no space left on device stdout!
by fredvr - Mar 13th 2008 04:23:03
Hi
I'm trying to use g4l to clone a fedora fc8 system disk into a backupfile
after doing the basic installation\configuration before data is added. It
has a 160Gb disk \ partition. the system is installed on a 50Gb log.vol.
(more or less doing a default setup)
the local disk I want to write the backup file to is also 160Gb with an
empty ntfs partition.
Shortly after the start of the backup process it stops and a message is
displayed:
gunzip no space left on device stdout.
The disk to clone is basically empty for about 90%.
After making the backup and compressing the backupfile will probably not
be much more than 10Gb.
How much scratch size does g4l need? (=how big must my target disk be?) or
is it not possible to store the backupfile on an NTFS partition this
way?
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[»]
Re: no space left on device stdout!
by msetzerii - Mar 13th 2008 04:53:49
Couple of things?
What version of g4l are you using? Early versions could not write to ntfs
partitions at all, so are you using the latest version or which exact
version are your using?
The ntfs partitions must have been cleanly shutdown, if the ntfs partition
was not cleanly shut down, it will fail to mount, and you will be writing
to the a very small ram drive.
What exact options did you use with the g4l?
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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[»]
Re: no space left on device stdout!
by fredvr - Mar 13th 2008 05:37:20
> Couple of things?
> What version of g4l are you using? Early
> versions could not write to ntfs
> partitions at all, so are you using the
> latest version or which exact version
> are your using?
> The ntfs partitions must have been
> cleanly shutdown, if the ntfs partition
> was not cleanly shut down, it will fail
> to mount, and you will be writing to the
> a very small ram drive.
>
> What exact options did you use with the
> g4l?
>
thanks for your quickly reply. Using v0.24 gt3
I replaced the dest.disk with a 250Gb one which is running now and this
seems to work ok up to now. When it has finished I will try to reproduce
the error again with the other disk. You might be right about the fact that
NTFS had it's dirty flag enabled! IŽll mount it to XP 1st.
How long the running process is going to last is hard to say because of
some strange reporting values!
the progress reports at this time: 322% finished, 530832 Mb of 157066
Mb... :)
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[»]
Re: no space left on device stdout!
by fredvr - Mar 13th 2008 07:43:33
> Couple of things?
> What version of g4l are you using? Early
> versions could not write to ntfs
> partitions at all, so are you using the
> latest version or which exact version
> are your using?
> The ntfs partitions must have been
> cleanly shutdown, if the ntfs partition
> was not cleanly shut down, it will fail
> to mount, and you will be writing to the
> a very small ram drive.
>
> What exact options did you use with the
> g4l?
>
thanks for your quickly reply. Using v0.24 gt3
I replaced the dest.disk with a 250Gb one which is running now and this
seems to work ok up to now. When it has finished I will try to reproduce
the error again with the other disk. You might be right about the fact that
NTFS had it's dirty flag enabled! IŽll mount it to XP 1st.
How long the running process is going to last is hard to say because of
some strange reporting values!
the progress reports at this time: 322% finished, 530832 Mb of 157066
Mb... :)
[reply]
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[»]
Re: no space left on device stdout!
by msetzerii - Mar 14th 2008 03:32:41
Can you check the contents of
/proc/partitions
It should be getting the of the partition, but the size it showed was like
150GB not 250GB, but that might have been the size of the partition.
But that doesn't explain how the number of bytes can go beyond the size of
the partition. The dd command should stop when it reaches the end of the
disk or partition, so unless it is getting information that doesn't match
the physical drive.
The /proc/partitions should give some info.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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[»]
"X - Reboot" function not working
by Frank - Feb 8th 2008 08:07:44
Hi there,
This is a nice software. Takes 20mins to backup my partition and 10 to
restore it byte by byte (45mins and 75mins for Acronis!). I can reboot just
like if nothing bad happened! :) Works like a charm with Linux as the OS
(openSUSE 64bits).
I rated this only 9 out of 10, cuz it's missing 3 functionalities and I
have one bug/problem.
Function1: When you go to command prompt from g4l, there is no way to
reboot the computer (haven't found it. Tried init, telinit, shutdown).
Function2: Have the ability to write the images on a XFS partition.
Function3: How complicated would it be to backup only the used portion of
the filesystem (to reduce image space)? I am pretty sure there is an answer
to that somewhere if I google better.
Bug/problem: Very annoying. When I hit the "X - Reboot etc"
function from the backup panel, whether I hit X key or enter on the X line,
the screen flickers 1 tenth of a second but stays in the panel, nothing
happens, no reboot, no freeze, nothing, just a quick flicker. I cannot
reboot unless I cold or warm RESET/Power Off the machine. Then at each
reboot Linux reads the partition's filesystem journal, cuz it did not
umount as expected. I know computers and one day that unexpected reboot I
have to force will cause a problem in the integrity, though the chance is
very very minimal. If the probability exists, it will happen one day. I
have tried with all the available kernels g4l uses. Same problem.
Can you plz comment on this?
Thank you very much!!
Frank
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[»]
Re: "X - Reboot" function not working
by msetzerii - Feb 8th 2008 14:08:45
The reboot option on g4l is reboot?
If you can, boot the system from the cd, and run reboot directly from the
command line, and perhaps some message is coming up. That is all the X
option does. Not sure what that could be. That is the busybox function I
believe? I am about to release a new version, and it has busybox 1.90, so
it might be fixed in that.
ftp://amd64gcc.dyndns.org/g4l-24alpha5.iso
Latest alpha of next version.
Regarding XFS, I believe it is built into the kernel for support, but not
sure if it can mount in read/write mode.
After booting from the cd, try a mount /dev/??? /mnt/local with an XFS
partition, and see if it mounts or gives an error. If it mounts, is it in
rw or ro mode. I had to add an ntfs-3g option to get it to mount ntfs in rw
mode, perhaps something for XFS is required as well.
Thanks for the feedback.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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[»]
Re: "X - Reboot" function not working
by msetzerii - Feb 8th 2008 15:02:34
Just to add a note. Pressing the reset with g4l should not cause any
problems, since it is running from a ram disk. Only if you have mounted a
local partition could there be an issue.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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[»]
Re: "X - Reboot" function not working
by Frank - Feb 9th 2008 19:01:29
> Just to add a note. Pressing the reset
> with g4l should not cause any problems,
> since it is running from a ram disk.
> Only if you have mounted a local
> partition could there be an issue.
>
Mike, tnx for the very quick response. If "reboot" is the command line,
then I feel stupid :), I assume I probably did not read carefully the
instructions or I went through the list of commands (when using tab, you
can use it in prompt if I remember, I think it was with g4l) too quickly
and missed reboot. So simple I never thought about it. Sorry my bad.
Well 0.24a is perfect! I hit the X and enter and it sends the term signal
and reboot I go! Wasn't able to reproduce the problem with that
version.
As for XFS, I might give it a try, or for my next OS install I might trash
my ext3 partition and make it XFS to optimize my file usage and then mount
it manually like you mentioned. I think same thing would also apply for
JFS, but I don't use that one, I have no need to minimize my cpu usage
(which is the most important performance characteristic of JFS).
Now for pressing reset, you are totally right, it uses ramdisk. Hum, I
wonder which journal then it was constantly reading upon reboot after using
0.23. Did not happen with 0.24a. Anyway, 0.24a works great for what I need!
:)
I'll try and have some fun copying a HFS+ partition on a MAC. :)
Tnx a lot for your answers, for my needs it deserves a 10, now! :)
Frank
[reply]
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[»]
Re: "X - Reboot" function not working
by msetzerii - Feb 10th 2008 02:36:02
Not sure how the mount command works with those file systems. I was under
the impression that it could try to mount the partition and figure out the
type. The ntfs partitions were mounted correctly, but in ro mode, so I had
to add those special options. The JFS might just require using -t jfs, or
perhaps some addition support files need to be added.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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[»]
Cannot boot after ClicknClone
by RK - Jan 9th 2008 07:50:08
I had done the cloning and all went thru fine. But when I tried to boot,
system just hangs at "Verifying DMI Pool Data". Worst is the
problem happens for the original disk as well.
I did the cloning using the same disk type and size but using another
machine. I really am lost at what to do. Any help would be much
appreciated.
[reply]
[top]
[»]
Re: Cannot boot after ClicknClone
by msetzerii - Jan 9th 2008 11:16:09
The clicknclone is basically a bit level copy using dd to copy from the one
device to the other. I don't see how it could have effected the original
disk, since it only reads from the source drive. Unless the copy was done
from the wrong drive.
Another possible issue might be that the original drive configuration of
the drives in the way of heads /sectors per track may be different from the
original options that were used. This might be way the original drive is
not working, if somehow this bios information has been changed.
You didn't mention the OS on the drive, but a web search seems to point to
a problem with the boot files, so it might be using fixmbr with
windows.
Again, the original drive not working doesn't make sense unless something
else has changed in the environment.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
[reply]
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[»]
I am in trouble
by coolguy789 - Jan 7th 2008 22:39:42
Hi everyone,
I used the g4l in order to clone my local IDE hdd to another local IDE
hdd. Both are on the same channel. I used the RAW mode, but I chose the
source as hda and the target as hda2. I assumed that it will just create an
image file on the hard disk, regardless what target hard disk I select. It
started to make the cloning, but I canceled it after few seconds since it
would take lots of time to complete. Now my system is not booting and it is
giving me the error message: "Volume group VolGroup00 not found"
"switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory"
"Kernel Panic - not syncing: attempted to kill init". Do you know
what could happen? Are the boot files now corrupted? Do you know if there
is a way to recover from this problem? I did the same process again, but
now I chose the source as hda and the target as hdb2. I am not sure if this
will help. It is still running, I will see in the morning, but I
doubt.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks.
[reply]
[top]
[»]
Re: I am in trouble
by msetzerii - Jan 7th 2008 23:36:46
Not good. You would probable need to use the rescue cd to see if it can fix
the problem. Hopefully, it is just the boot partition that is message up,
and you can reinstall the grub.
Option A is talking about where you are going to place the image (Target)
or where you are going to read the image from (Source).
So, it appears you did the opposite of what it should be. In this case if
you wanted to make an image of hda onto hdb2, then the hdb2 would have been
the target. and hda would be what you would select as the disk or partition
to backup.
It should have failed to mount the /dev/hda, but it might have tried to
write to it directly. I haven't done a lot of modifications the the local
backup options, since I took over the project. That is why I recommend the
network options, but I think the rescue cd is the option to try and repair
the setup first.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
[reply]
[top]
[»]
NTFSCLONE works just dandy, thanks.
by penguinroar - Oct 20th 2007 15:08:08
Tried NTFSCLONE out and it was a nice experience. Works like a charm, is
fast and makes small images. A 30 GB disk with 20 GB of data on it became a
6 GB image with lzop compression. Its a really welcome addition for when
one have to make clones of ntfs partitions.
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[»]
Keyboard input two characters! Extra echo.
by Aditya Nag - Oct 9th 2007 00:38:17
Hi,
I'm trying to run G4l off a network boot on a Dell Inspiron 530s. It boots
fine, but at the command prompt, when I type "g", it inputs
"gg"!! Basically, every keypress gets registered twice.
This is a USB kb. I tried another one, same problem. I can't plug in a
PS/2 kb, since this machine does not have the ports.
The funny thing is, at the boot: prompt (the place where I can select the
kernel), the KB works fine.
This leads me to belive that it's something to do with the G4l kernel, not
the syslinux kernel.
Any ideas? Can I give any kernel parameters or something to fix this?
I have looked in the BIOS and tried changing all the USB related options..
no luck
Thanks,
Aditya
[reply]
[top]
[»]
Re: Keyboard input two characters! Extra echo.
by Aditya Nag - Oct 9th 2007 01:12:31
> Hi,
> I'm trying to run G4l off a network boot
> on a Dell Inspiron 530s. It boots fine,
> but at the command prompt, when I type
> "g", it inputs
> "gg"!! Basically, every
> keypress gets registered twice.
>
> This is a USB kb. I tried another one,
> same problem. I can't plug in a PS/2 kb,
> since this machine does not have the
> ports.
>
> The funny thing is, at the boot: prompt
> (the place where I can select the
> kernel), the KB works fine.
>
> This leads me to belive that it's
> something to do with the G4l kernel, not
> the syslinux kernel.
>
> Any ideas? Can I give any kernel
> parameters or something to fix this?
>
> I have looked in the BIOS and tried
> changing all the USB related options..
> no luck
>
> Thanks,
> Aditya
I fixed this problem. I was not booting the correct kernel. Now that I
boot bz22.2 it's fine.
But I have a NEW problem. The network card is not getting detected.
This is a Intel G33 chipset, on a Dell custom board.
I have downloaded the correct driver, from
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/confirm.aspx?httpDown=http://downloadmirror.intel.com/9180/eng/e1000-7.6.9.tar.gz&agr=N&ProductID=983&DwnldId=9180&strOSs=All&OSFullName=All%20Operating%20Systems&lang=eng
My question is simple: How do I add this driver to G4l? Do I need to
build a new kernel? Or is there an easier way?
Any help would be appreciated.
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Re: Keyboard input two characters! Extra echo.
by msetzerii - Oct 9th 2007 08:21:41
The g4l had the latest released kernel at the time, and the latest git
kernel. Sometimes the later git kernels support the latest hardware. There
have been some later kernels, and some newer git updates as well. I've
built some new kernels, but the problem with Symantec has prevented me from
working on integrating them. Do you know if the knoppix cd recognizes the
nic. There are ways to run the g4l from a knoppix cd.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Problem from Symantec
by msetzerii - Sep 28th 2007 19:40:43
Just as a heads up. I was contacted by an Attorney representing Symantec on
9/28/07 concerning the use of the word "GHOST" and references to Norton and
Symantec. I wasn't the original author that created the name of the
project, and was under the impression that name and references to Norton
and Symantec were done correctly, and that the Info screen at the beginning
of the g4l script clearly stated that it was not connected to Norton Ghost
or Symantec, and included there web site. But it appears that is not the
case.
I have sent a few messages out including one to the Software Freedom Law
Center, but have only gotten a form email back stating the limits of their
service, and to confirm that I understood it. I did confirm that I
understood, and was just looking for some guidance on what I would need to
do.
I would have no problem removing all references to Ghost, Norton and
Symantec, but really didn't want to have to change the name from G4L to
something else, but from the last email it doesn't appear that is currently
exceptionable to them.
From the latest email
We ask that you not use GHOST, SYMANTEC, NORTON or any other Symantec
trademark as the name of your program or in any other trademark sense. In
addition, changing to G4L is not sufficient. The G in the acronym stands
for GHOST so that you are still making reference to and drawing off of
Symantec's proprietary name and products. Please adopt a new name for the
program that does not draw upon or make any reference to GHOST. Ghost for
Linux and G4L should be replaced with this new name everywhere--on all web
sites, in the program itself, etc.
End of email quote
It is interesting that Ghosting on wikipedia has one of its definitions as
being disk imaging, Something like people using the Term Xerox to making a
copy even if it isn't with a Xerox machine.
The original message was also directed to sourceforge, but I have not
heard from them yet, but would expect something soon, and hopefully some
guidelines on what action needs to take place and how quickly. I did just
ask the Symantec attorney for a time line, but don't know it will be enough
to make an orderly change over, or require a shutdown of the current
project, and then a full creation of a new project with all the changes
made...
Generally, I've seen a good number of downloads each month of the various
files, but don't see much feedback of comments on the pages, but would
hate to see the project be killed by this...
Thank You.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: Problem from Symantec
by penguinroar - Oct 17th 2007 12:41:59
For starter i think g4l is the best tool i have for imaging and cloning. I
have tried the others but surprisingly g4l beats them in ease of use and
stability / predictability. The speed isnt bad either compared to other
products that only clone files. Compability with partition types is one of
a kind wich makes it very useful for server cloning where no other product
can support the filesystem or partition type. Im grateful to be able to use
g4l.
My suggestion in this case would be to turn to Groklaw.net and Pamela
Jones for support. Its an OSS site thats very fluent in matters of law and
have a big following of both laymen and proffesionals that can give you
some direction.
IANAL but from what i understand its perfectly in order to reference
competing products in documetation etc. In interfaces its even more common
since its hard to say for eg. "Microsoft AD integration" without using
Microsofts trademarks. I see this letter as a simple attempt to scare. Why
g4l would infringe on anything is beyond me.
OTOH a new name could be a good thing. Something more descriptive like
Clonix, Mirrox or Linux Imaging System perhaps.
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Re: Problem from Symantec
by vint - Nov 5th 2007 06:24:01
penguinroar, I agree with you 100%
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Re: Problem from Symantec
by Rick Moen - Nov 21st 2007 15:14:01
Michael --
I have particular opinions about Symantec's demands in this matter, but
am not an attorney (but rather a computer network consultant and sysadmin
with a longtime interest in law), and so cannot lawfully advise you on your
specific legal situation, as doing so would violate the Unauthorized
Practice of Law (UPL) statutes. Attorneys, ironically, in the general case
are also barred from commenting by ethics rules and statutes, for free or
otherwise, except in the rare case where they're accredited to the Bar in
your jurisdiction and have done in-person consultation with you so as to
have done due diligence in getting all relevant facts.
So, since I cannot lawfully address your specific legal situation (and
so you'll have to guess my opinion on that), instead I'll speak in general
terms about law, something anyone is permitted to do and is (in my view)
part of citizenship. The applicable field of law is, of course,
trademark.
It's extremely common for companies to make excessive, ludicrous,
unenforceable demands on third parties about those third parties mentions
of their trademarked phrases, styles, names, etc. The reason they do this
is that the fundamental nature of trademark law makes them a little crazy
and motivates them to do it, in order to attempt to absolutely control
third-party mentions and stave off the day when their marks are adjudicated
to have become "generic" and thus no longer theirs at all. Cory Doctorow
has explained
those bizarre realities better than anyone I've seen, though I've also
maintained my own modest effort.
The fact is that trademark owners simply lack the legal right to
require you to follow their rules and/or seek their permission to mention
(or cite) the names, styles, slogans, etc., of their trademarked goods and
services. They'd really love to convince you they have those rights, for
reasons Cory explains. It's called "bluffing". They do have the right to
enjoin you from using those marks in particular ways: They can get civil
judgements against you for using their marks in ways likely to convince
their customers that your competing commercial product or service within
the same trade or industry is produced or endorsed by them -- which is
called the tort of "trademark infringement". Note that, among other
things, any 100% non-commercial third-party usage one makes of a mark
inherently never can infringe trademark.
Essentially, trademark is a (very) limited monopoly on commercial brand
impression against competing commercial offerings. It is not the
"ownership of a name" that trademark owners would like to convince you it
is.
(Not all non-commercial usage is absolutely privileged, because of the
separate tort of trademark tarnishment aka disparagement: Your
non-commercial Flash photo showing Disney's Goofy committing disgusting
sexual acts would be trademark tarnishment.)
The USA recognises the specific categories of "fair use" and
"nominative use" as types of mark usage even by commercial competitors that
is always lawful. Nominative
use is your merely naming (thus, "nominative") a product or service,
e.g., I can talk all day long about having bought an Apple iPod, and can
even tell people it sucks, without having to fear Apple suing me over
non-permitted uses of the words "Apple" and "iPod".
Fair use: Trademark holders cannot at any time bar people from using
trademark-encumbered names in their generic, non-product-specific senses.
E.g., Apple Computer cannot prevent you from writing about apples, and you
can offer macintoshes to ward off rain without needing to worry about
itinerant lawyers from Cupertino.
(Some write-ups you'll see mix up the names for those two concepts, or
use variants, but the point is that both types of usage are absolutely
lawful, regardless of what the trademark owner says, and no matter how
loudly it screams and its lawyers jump up and down.)
Anyhow, I'm absolutely aching to tell you what I think of Symantec's
attempt to push around people who don't know trademark law very well, as
most people don't -- but my doing so could be construed as UPL, so I
shouldn't.
If you visit the "ChillingEffects.org" Web site, staffed by law-school
students, you'll read interesting analyses and write-ups on trademark law.
Since they face the same UPL dilemma, their approach is to reproduce on the
Web demand letters people submit to them, yellow-highlighting particular
phrases whose meaning and context within trademark law they then explain in
detail. I.e., they cannot say "Fooware's demand letter is full of used cow
food", but they can explain what's going on in such a fashion that you're
free to draw that conclusion for yourself.
For what it's worth, I'm one of the editors of Linux Gazette, which
went through a similar situation when the corporation that then published
Linux Journal made baseless demands and legal threats purporting to require
us to change the name of our magazine on trademark grounds. We did careful
legal analysis and then politely declined. After a couple of years of
"scary" but toothless sabre-rattling, the corporation gave up and we kept
our name.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
(speaking only for himself)
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Re: Problem from Symantec
by msetzerii - Nov 22nd 2007 01:58:47
First, I would like to really thank you for taking the time to make this
complete set of comments taking into account the various limitation
factors.
I wish I could get some real specific answers, rather than just getting
the one side from their lawyer. Have never gotten any response from
legal@sourceforge.
The issue was discussed on Linux.com and backupcentral.com, but again.
Nothing clear, and some opinions on both sides of the issue.
I even sent emails to the government trademark office asking for some
specifics, and some guidelines on what is involved in determining if a
trademark has become generic.
The only reply was to call a long distance number.
I did remove all the references to their G word, S word and N word from
the web sites, and have also removed them from the working copy of the main
script, in which it
only appeared on one screen, where it mentioned that the program was not
related to their product, and gave their web site link if that is what
users were looking for. The
other scripts have no use of those words.
The excessive request of removing the G4L or actually just the G would be
a major problem, since it is the letter used in all the scripts, and also
the documentation uses that letter,
and then I have all the references to G4U to provide the clarification on
that issue. I just left the 3 letter names of both projects.
I did sent an email to their lawyer asking for more information, but have
not gotten any further responses back.
I had contacted the G4U author after I was contacted by them, and he had
heard nothing at that time, and don't know if he has had a similar issue,
but he had used the G word with an ing, so don't know.
Again, Thanks for your time.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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Re: Problem from Symantec
by Rick Moen - Nov 22nd 2007 02:48:49
You're certainly more than welcome, Michael. I hope those explanations
(of the general legal framework) prove useful.
(Regarding: legal@sourceforge) Hmm, legal@sourceforge is the remnant
of what was once VA Linux Systems + Andover.net, after multiple staff
turnovers, exhaustion of the IPO proceeds, and a couple of radical changes
of business focus -- and owns Freshmeat, which came to them as an Andover
property. There is or was at least one person there who's brilliant and
whom I respect highly: chief counsel Jay Seirmarco. However, their legal
department has no mission to provide legal advice to the broader open
source community, and for reasons I explained could not lawfully and
ethically give you legal advice anyway (Bar accreditation and ethics
requirements).
I hope you will find time to follow the links I suggested, which to my
best understanding accurately detail what trademark rights really are, and,
equally important, what they are not. (Again, I am not a lawyere, cannot
lawfully offer you "legal advice", and have tried very hard not to purport
to.)
There are always "some opinions on both sides of the issue" when
trademark demand letters arrive at open source projects. (The syndrome is
ongoing, which is why CentOS rather ignominiously expunged all mention of
Red Hat from its Web site, and now says only that it does rebuilds from
source code of a "major North American Enterprise Linux distribution" --
closely paraphrased -- which strikes me as a rather feeble and unfortunate
reaction on, I am told, the site webmaster's part.) The problem is that
99% of the people who opine on the subject know fsck-all about trademark
law, and at most are burbling about what they want trademark law to be.
I wish I could justify giving you advice on the legal merits of
Symantec's complaint, but you'll just have to figure that out and make up
your own mind. (I will, however, let slip that derisive laughter was
involved.)
In general, what I'd really like would be for the open source community
to show a little more backbone when faced with a 41 cent demand letter
thrown together from generic threat-letter templates by some corporation's
paralegal. Of course, "backbone" should logically require that threat
recipients take the trouble to actually research and understand the law (or
consult an attorney), which rarely happens: It's much easier to just
capitulate.
We at Linux Gazette were one of the rare exceptions. After careful
study, we said "No", and the other guy blinked, because he in fact had been
outrageously bluffing.
But most people immediately and completely cave in. And the corporate
flunkies with the rolls of 41 cent stamps know that.
Your situation may differ from ours. I would encourage you to study
what the law really is (as opposed to what net.randoms on Linux.com and
backupcentral.com, not to mention a Symantec lawyer, claim it is). It's
not really very difficult, but you'll need to decide that for yourself.
Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com
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Great app
by David - Sep 20th 2007 14:04:51
Hi, I must say this app saved my day. Now for the question:
I was able to set this up in network boot and I want to automate the
installation of my image. I made it as far as the shell prompt (after the
dialogs) and was able to modify the ramdisk to call whichever command I
want.
Is there a parameter I can pass so it automatically restores the image
without going through the menu? For exemple:
g4l 192.168.0.1 image1.lzo '-u user1 -p password1' dhcp img2 restore
reboot
Crossing my fingers that you say yes.... :)
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Re: Great app
by msetzerii - Sep 20th 2007 19:31:36
G4L script is not setup to do an automatic restore, since one would have to
modify the CD image first, and if one put that in the wrong machine....
One could extract the lines of code needed.
cat g4l | grep ncftpget | grep lzop
That would show the line from the script, and you would then need to
change all the variables to the actual values. You could add this in a
front-end script. Normally, it displays a menu that feeds options to the
regular g4l script, but one could put whatever commands they want in that
script. You could just enter the modified line at the top and do something
like this.
ncftpget ....... &
xprogress
sleep 20
reboot
Note that the g4l script uses the & on the command to do the imaging, so
it runs in the background, so the progress subroutine can display the
progress. The xprogress script is one that just displays the progress. I
then usually have a short sleep to make sure all buffers are flushed, and
then the reboot.
But be very careful when testing, since doing it wrong wipes out the
destination drive.
As a note, when I am doing a large number of machines like my classroom, I
generally use udpcast to use multicast to image all the machines at one.
You can actually have it build custom CDs with options set. I have one CD
configured to send the hda image, and 7 cds that have the configuration to
restore image to hda. I boot the setup machine with the send cd, and boot
up the other 18 machines using the receive cd. After all machines at the
prompt, Press Enter and the process goes thru and is set to automatically
reboot.
So, there are options, but would take some planning to make sure you get
what you need.
--
Computer Science Instructor
Guam Community College
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VMWare SCSI Hard Disk
by Yoway Buorn - Sep 14th 2007 11:34:38
The g4l ISO doesn't recognize my VMWare SCSI drive. Do I need to add
specific drivers to the ISO before booting?
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Re: VMWare SCSI Hard Disk
by msetzerii - Sep 14th 2007 16:07:23
G4L should generally see the hardware at the physical level, since the
vmware |
