How to understand Clonezilla unattended
A partition and disk imaging/cloning program
Brought to you by:
steven_shiau
Menu
▾
▴
19-6-2012
After successful experiments with Clonezilla in Graphic mode, but also in CLI mode I have questions about some aspects. Following menuentries in GRUB2:
Type A:
#MULTISYSTEM_MENU_DEBUT|21-05-2012-22:45:28-221000795|debian1|multisystem-clonezilla|113Mio|
menuentry "Clonezilla Live GUI" {
linux /debian1/vmlinuz ro root=UUID=CE48-687B live-media-path=/debian1 boot=live hostname=oneiric config quiet noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset ocs_live_run="ocs-live-general" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_keymap="NONE" ocs_live_batch="no" ocs_lang="en_US.UTF-8" video=uvesafb:mode_option=800x600-16 ip=frommedia nosplash
initrd /debian1/initrd.img
}
#MULTISYSTEM_MENU_FIN|21-05-2012-22:45:28-221000795|debian1|multisystem-clonezilla|113Mio|
Type B:
#MULTISYSTEM_MENU_DEBUT|21-05-2012-22:45:28-221000795|debian1|multisystem-clonezilla|113Mio|
menuentry "Clonezilla Live 2=Auto Restore" {
linux /debian1/vmlinuz ro root=UUID=CE48-687B live-media-path=/debian1 boot=live hostname=oneiric config quiet noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset ocs_prerun="mount /dev/sdb5 /mnt" ocs_prerun1="mount -bind /mnt /home/partimag/ "ocs_live_run="ocs-sr -q -j2 -z1 -i 2000 -p reboot saveparts ask_user sda1" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_keymap="NONE" ocs_live_batch="yes" ocs_lang="en_US.UTF-8" video=uvesafb:mode_option=800x600-16 ip=frommedia nosplash
initrd /debian1/initrd.img
}
#MULTISYSTEM_MENU_FIN|21-05-2012-22:45:28-221000795|debian1|multisystem-clonezilla|113Mio|
Type C:
#MULTISYSTEM_MENU_DEBUT|21-05-2012-22:45:28-221000795|debian1|multisystem-clonezilla|113Mio|
menuentry "Clonezilla Live Create-W7-NL" {
linux /debian1/vmlinuz ro root=UUID=CE48-687B live-media-path=/debian1 boot=live hostname=oneiric config quiet noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset ocs_live_run="/live/image/debian1/Create-W7-NL" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_keymap="NONE" ocs_live_batch="no" ocs_lang="en_US.UTF-8" video=uvesafb:mode_option=800x600-16 ip=frommedia nosplash
initrd /debian1/initrd.img
}
#MULTISYSTEM_MENU_FIN|21-05-2012-22:45:28-221000795|debian1|multisystem-clonezilla|113Mio|
Type D:
#MULTISYSTEM_MENU_DEBUT|21-05-2012-22:45:28-221000795|debian1|multisystem-clonezilla|113Mio|
menuentry "Clonezilla Live Restore-W7-NL" {
linux /debian1/vmlinuz ro root=UUID=CE48-687B live-media-path=/debian1 boot=live hostname=oneiric config quiet noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset ocs_live_run="/live/image/debian1/Restore-W7-NL" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_keymap="NONE" ocs_lang="en_US.UTF-8" video=uvesafb:mode_option=800x600-16 ip=frommedia nosplash
initrd /debian1/initrd.img
}
#MULTISYSTEM_MENU_FIN|21-05-2012-22:45:28-221000795|debian1|multisystem-clonezilla|113Mio|
Type E:
#MULTISYSTEM_MENU_DEBUT|01-06-2012-22:29:15-222106176|gparted1|multisystem-gparted|123Mio|
menuentry "gparted-live-0.12.1-5.iso" {
linux /gparted1/live/vmlinuz root=UUID=CE48-687B live-media-path=/gparted1/live boot=live config noswap nomodeset ip=frommedia nosplash lang=en_US.UTF-8
initrd /gparted1/live/initrd.img
}
#MULTISYSTEM_MENU_FIN|01-06-2012-22:29:15-222106176|gparted1|multisystem-gparted|123Mio|
In all the file Clonezilla-Live-20120127-oneiric.iso is applied, except Gparted as indicated for Type E.
All choices in the GRUB2 menu (also named “ splash image”?) are executing except Type B!!
Type B starts up in a (black and white) text screen, however that's not readable because it scrolls too fast!
The text ended with: 'To save disk(s)/partition(s) as an image or restore an image to disk(s)/partition(s) interactively, use: “ocs-sr” -x '
“ocs-sr” is finished
Now you can choose to (0) Power off (1) reboot (2) cmd line…
Taking choice → user@oneiric:~$ cd /var/log delivers a number of log files but neither with the scrolled text, as above mentioned. Regretfully, so it is not possible to do any debugging!!!
My first question: a) how to delay the scrolling screen or where can I found this messages?
And, of course, question: b) Is there a mistake in the programming of the menuentry of Type B?
Type A was executing okay and very fast. I did create and restore a Windows partition (sda1) for which clz did apply a -z1p compression, what was possible by the i5 processor (pigz=parallel-gzip in the multiple CPU's) inside the desktop-pc. The original partition (sda1) of about 33 GB was compressed to 10GB in 490 secs.
Type C&D I have used scripts for create and restore the same W7-NL (sda1) but used an older compression method gzip, by applying -z1 in ocs_live_run. This took much more time: about 925 secs and an image size of 14.7 GB!!
Question: c) How exactly to explain the dependency of the applied compression method?
But, more important: question d) Is it forbidden to create an image with -z1 and restore it with -z1p?
In other words: question d) How can clonezilla-live restore images with different compression?
And question e) What is going on if you create an image in a i5 system and restore the same image in a Pentium 4 system (thus without parallel-processing)?
Last question is related to GParted, menuentry Type E!
By applying the Partition Editor (Gparted) it can be concluded that the Mounting Point of the MULTIBOOT-USB (pendrivelinux.com) is “ /live/image”' and it appears NOT in the gparted menuentry of Type E.
Instead it is necessary in the clz menuentries for live-media-path!!
For your information on the MULTIBOOT-USB maps are located for /boot, /home (with empty partimag), /gpartde1 and /debian1 and inside /debian1 are located the linux files, such as /debian/vmlinuz and /debian1/initrd.img directly, while these files on /gparted1 are located inside /gparted/live/vmlinuz…
Further on the desktop pc, in which I can read the contents of that MULTIBOOT-USB, in the Terminal of Ubuntu 12.04, with another mounting point: /media/MULTIBOOT.
For me it is very confusing, for it is moreover necessary to mount to another location of the image repository, in my case /sdb5 (what I have given the label Clone-Images → /media/Clone-Images in Ubuntu O.S.).
So, question d) Is there an easy explanation how to understand the different application of mounting points in this situation?
Gosh… Such a long post…
For your questions,
(a) Some logs are in /var/log/partclone.log and /var/log/clonezilla.log. However, it's not 100% shown on the screen will be saved to those files. If you are familiar with serial console, you can try to add the boot parameters like "live-getty console=ttyS0,38400n81". Ref: http://clonezilla.org/fine-print-live-doc.php?path=clonezilla-live/doc/99_Misc/00_live-initramfs-manual.doc#00_live-initramfs-manual.doc
(b) I can not tell from a quick reading.
(C) What did you mean?
(d) Is it forbidden to create an image with -z1 and restore it with -z1p? -> No.
(e) It's OK to do so. Gz is the compression algorithm, so it's nothing to do with parallel compression/decompression or not.
(f) I do not understand that. What did you meant?
Steven.