HOWTO Clone Disk Images on Linux Booted from

a Network

Guilherme Tupynambá
gtupy (at) uol.com.br

2002−09−09

Revision History
Revision 0.3 2002−09−24 Revised by: gct
Review suggestions incorporated
Revision 0.2 2002−09−23 Revised by: jyg
Minor revisions
Revision 0.1 2002−09−09 Revised by: gct
First draft.

This document describes a setup that allows a machine to boot Linux from BOOTP/TFTP, using the Grub
boot loader, and save and restore disk and partition images to and from a TFTP server.
 HOWTO Clone Disk Images on Linux Booted from a Network

Table of Contents
1. Legal Notices....................................................................................................................................................1
1.1. Disclaimer.........................................................................................................................................1
1.2. Copyright..........................................................................................................................................1
1.3. Feedback...........................................................................................................................................1

2. Introduction.....................................................................................................................................................2
2.1. Why clone disk images.....................................................................................................................2
2.2. Why boot from a network.................................................................................................................2
2.3. Network boot process overview........................................................................................................2

3. Setting up DHCP and TFTP servers.............................................................................................................3

3.1. Setting up DHCP..............................................................................................................................3
3.2. Setting up TFTP................................................................................................................................3
3.3. Using different servers......................................................................................................................4

4. Preparing boot files.........................................................................................................................................5

4.1. Kernel................................................................................................................................................5
4.2. Files on initrd....................................................................................................................................5
4.3. Packing initrd....................................................................................................................................6

5. Booting from Grub floppy disk.....................................................................................................................8

5.1. Grub menu file..................................................................................................................................8
5.2. Compiling Grub with network support.............................................................................................8
5.3. Making the boot floppy disk.............................................................................................................9

6. Running the clone script...............................................................................................................................10

6.1. Saving and restoring disk images...................................................................................................10
6.2. Using fdisk......................................................................................................................................10

7. Extending the solution..................................................................................................................................11

7.1. Saving and restoring files instead of file systems...........................................................................11
7.2. Setting up the master boot record...................................................................................................11
7.3. Loading necessary modules............................................................................................................11
7.4. Predefined operations on grub.conf................................................................................................11

A. List of files on initrd.....................................................................................................................................12

B. Clone script...................................................................................................................................................13

References..........................................................................................................................................................16

i
1. Legal Notices
1.1. Disclaimer
This article assumes that the reader using the described setup is familiar with the technical concepts and
commands. If you are not comfortable issuing the commands in this document or don't understand the clone
script, don't try these instructions.

Additionally, if you do not know the difference between /dev/hda and /dev/hda1, please do not use this
HOWTO. This may be the difference between restoring a partition and losing all your data. Please note that I
take no responsibility for anything that may go wrong, even if the error resulting from any incorrectness in
this article.

For the purpose of this document, the RedHat 7.3 distribution has been used in both server and client.
Although this shouldn't make great difference, no test has been made on other distributions or custom setups.

1.2. Copyright
Copyright (c) 2002 Guilherme Tupynambá

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation License (GFDL), Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, with no Front−Cover Texts, and with no Back−Cover Texts. The clone script is
licensed in the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

1.3. Feedback
Comments on this article will be highly appreciated. Direct your comments to <gtupy (at)
uol.com.br>.

1. Legal Notices 1
2. Introduction
2.1. Why clone disk images
The main reason to clone disk images is to ease the installation of an operating system and a basic set of
applications over a large number of machines. One standard machine is prepared and its pristine image is
saved to be restored on other machines saving efforts and simplifying procedures.

2.2. Why boot from a network

Booting from hard disk would limit the possibilities of copying images. It wouldn't be possible, for instance,
to safely copy to and from a partition mounted by the booted operating system. Also, the operating system
may not be Linux, in which case free options to clone are not available.

2.3. Network boot process overview

The client machine boots from a Grub floppy disk. Then, using the Grub BOOTP support, it gets an IP
address from a DHCP server. Next, the client machine downloads the kernel and initrd images from the TFTP
server. Once the initrd image is mounted in memory, the initialization script is run, making use of the
programs and files stored in this image. This script allows block devices contents to be saved in the TFTP
server, and contents from the TFTP server to be written to the block devices.

2. Introduction 2
3. Setting up DHCP and TFTP servers
A DHCP server is required to provide IP addresses for the clients when booting Grub (BOOTP) and later
when booting Linux. A TFTP server is required to make the boot images available on the network for Linux
to boot. The TFTP server is also necessary to make it possible to save and restore the disk images.

3.1. Setting up DHCP

Details on DHCP are beyond the scope of this article. The "Linux Networking HOWTO" has a chapter on
DHCP.

Setting up DHCP is very easy, but if you are in a network environment administered by someone else, it's
advisable to use a preexisting DHCP server. If you "own" the network then you can follow this procedure.

Install DHCP, if not installed, from the rpm package, normally found in Linux distributions:

# rpm −ihv dhcp−*.rpm

Edit the /etc/dhcpd.conf file to configure DHCP service. In our setup, the server has IP address 10.0.0.1
and provides IP addresses up to 253 clients. Configure /etc/dhcpd.conf according to your environment:

#/etc/dhcpd.conf
server−identifier dhcp.clonedomain.com;
default−lease−time 172800;
max−lease−time 604800;
option domain−name "clonedomain.com";
subnet 10.0.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range dynamic−bootp 10.0.0.2 10.0.0.254;
}

Start the dhcpd server:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/dhcpd start.

3.2. Setting up TFTP

Setting up TFTP is almost as easy as DHCP.

First install from the rpm package:

# rpm −ihv tftp−server−*.rpm

Create a directory for the files:

# mkdir /tftpboot
# chown nobody:nobody /tftpboot

3. Setting up DHCP and TFTP servers 3

 HOWTO Clone Disk Images on Linux Booted from a Network

The directory /tftpboot is owned by user nobody, because this is the default user id set up by tftpd to
access the files.

Edit the file /etc/xinetd.d/tftp to look like the following:

service tftp
{
socket_type = dgram
protocol = udp
wait = yes
user = root
server = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
server_args = −c −s /tftpboot
disable = no
per_source = 11
cps = 100 2
}

The changes from the default file are the parameter disable = no (to enable the service) and the server
argument −c. This argument allows for the creation of files, which is necessary if you want to save boot or
disk images. You may want to make TFTP read only in normal operation.

Then reload xinetd:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/xinetd reload

You can use the tftp command, available from the tftp (client) rpm package, to test the server. At the tftp
prompt, you can issue the commands put and get.

3.3. Using different servers

It is possible to use different servers for DHCP and TFTP. This may be necessary if using a preexisting DHCP
server. You can configure the next−server parameter in DHCP to point to the TFTP server or you can use
the command tftpserver in Grub.

3. Setting up DHCP and TFTP servers 4

4. Preparing boot files
Now that the server is set up, you need to prepare the files to make the client boot. Two files are necessary:
the kernel and the init ramdisk (initrd) which will be mounted by the kernel as the root file system. This
document assumes that the procedures outlined in this section and the next are made in the client machine.
Normally, when saving and restoring disk images, there is no need to have Linux installed on a local hard
disk. To deploy disk images to a number of machines, start by installing a Linux distribution on one machine
for each model. Use DHCP and have TFTP client to test the setup made in the previous section. Unless
otherwise noted, commands are issued in the bash shell by the user root in a working directory.

4.1. Kernel
Identify the compressed kernel file:

# cd /boot
# ls vmlinuz−$(uname −r)
vmlinuz−2.4.18−3

The version may vary, according to your system. Upload this file to the TFTP server, renaming it to
vmlinuz:

# tftp 10.0.0.1
tftp> binary
tftp> put vmlinuz−2.4.18−3 vmlinuz
Sent 1030147 bytes in 2.3 seconds
tftp> quit

You may want to keep the file name, or have different names for different hardware models or kernel
versions. We use the same names for the kernel and initrd so we don't have to make another boot floppy disk
after changing the kernel or the initrd images.

4.2. Files on initrd

Next, make the root file system image for the client. The full listing of the files is in Appendix A.

These files have been taken from a working system as a minimum configuration for having powerful shell
(bash), client network utilities (dhcpcd and tftp), and copying and compressing utilities (dd, gzip).
Administrative commands (mknod, mount, fdisk and insmod) are also present.

In the working directory create a file named initrd.lst and put these file names on it. To check the
existence of these files in your system, run the following command:

# ls −d $(<initrd.lst) > /dev/null

You should get an error output like this:

ls: /bin/clone: No such file or directory

4. Preparing boot files 5

 HOWTO Clone Disk Images on Linux Booted from a Network
ls: /bin/tftp: No such file or directory
ls: /lib/3c59x.o: No such file or directory

The first error is a script to be created in the working directory. The second error is the program tftp found in
the directory /usr/bin instead of /bin. The third is the network interface card module (probably not
yours) found in the directory /lib/modules/$(uname −r)/kernel/drivers/net.

These three files will be discussed in upcoming sections separately soon. If there are other missing files, check
for lack of installation or differences in version, distribution or hardware. Adjust the list to match your system.

4.3. Packing initrd

The next step is to make the image. A size of 4 Mbytes was enough to hold the files in our setup. You may
increase this size if necessary.

# dd if=/dev/zero of=initrd bs=1024 count=4096

4096+0 records in
4096+0 records out
# yes | mkfs initrd
mke2fs 1.27 (8−Mar−2002)
initrd is not a block special device.
Proceed anyway? (y,n) Filesystem label=
blah blah blah...
# mkdir mnt
# mount −o loop initrd mnt/
# egrep −v "clone|3c59x|tftp" initrd.lst | cpio −pdm mnt
4876 blocks

Now the three files excluded by the egrep command. Copy the tftp program from /usr/bin to the image
directory:

# cp −p /usr/bin/tftp mnt/bin/

Identify the proper module for your network interface card. Use the output of the commands lspci and lsmod
to identify the file, which resides in the directory /lib/modules/$(uname
−r)/kernel/drivers/net.

Whenever you see a reference to 3c59x, use the name of the module suited for your case.

# cp −p /lib/modules/$(uname −r)/kernel/drivers/net/3c59x.o mnt/lib/

Edit the clone script found in Appendix B, changing the variables as explained in Section 6. Make it
executable and copy it to the image directory:

# chmod +x clone
# cp −p clone mnt/bin/

Unmount, compress, and send the initrd image.

4. Preparing boot files 6

 HOWTO Clone Disk Images on Linux Booted from a Network
# umount mnt/
# gzip initrd
# tftp 10.0.0.1
tftp> binary
tftp> put initrd.gz
Sent 1155530 bytes in 2.8 seconds
tftp> quit

4. Preparing boot files 7

5. Booting from Grub floppy disk
The next step is to make a boot floppy disk using Grub. GNU Grub is the GRand Unified Bootloader. It can
handle BOOTP and TFTP, so it can boot from network.

5.1. Grub menu file

In the working directory create a file named grub.conf with the following content:

default=0
timeout=1
title Clone
bootp
root (nd)
kernel /vmlinuz rw root=/dev/ram ramdisk_size=4096 init=/bin/clone
initrd /initrd.gz

In the last four lines are the Grub commands to boot from network:

• bootp, to get an IP address from the DHCP server.

• root (nd), to set the root in the network (TFTP server). An alternative TFTP server could be set
before this command using the command tftpserver <tftp server>.
• kernel, to specify the kernel file and its parameters:

♦ rw, to specify writable mounting of the root file system.

♦ root, to specify where to mount the root file system (in ram memory).
♦ ramdisk_size, to specify the ram disk size. 4096 (kbytes) is the default size but if you
needed a greater image, change this parameter accordingly.
♦ init, to specify (our script) as the first program to run in user mode (in the absence of init
and sh).
• initrd to specify the file holding the image of the root file system.

5.2. Compiling Grub with network support

To compile Grub, first download the source tarball from the Grub web site and unpack it. Run configure
specifying the menu file you just created and the network interface card model. Run make as usual.

# tar xzf grub−0.92.tar.gz

# cd grub−0.92
# ./configure −−enable−preset−menu=../grub.conf −−enable−3c90x
# make

Again, where you see 3c90x put the model of your network interface card. First check if it is supported by
Grub.

5. Booting from Grub floppy disk 8

 HOWTO Clone Disk Images on Linux Booted from a Network

5.3. Making the boot floppy disk

Once Grub is compiled, the image of the boot floppy disk is the concatenation of the files stage1/stage1
and stage2/stage2. To make the floppy disk run:

# cat stage1/stage1 stage2/stage2 | dd of=/dev/fd0

You should now have a boot floppy disk.

5. Booting from Grub floppy disk 9

6. Running the clone script
The clone script, shown in Appendix B, is not essential. You can make init=/bin/bash as a kernel
parameter and end up with a shell from where you can run the available commands and programs.

The script is presented here to show the commands in a formal way and to propose a way to reduce the
possibility of damages resulting from mistyping. You have to change the variables tftp_server,
nic_module, major_a, family_a and image_a according to your environment and application.

Please note that the arrays major_a and family_a are corresponding. Wrong major number for a given
family name will mislead the user. You can locate the major and minor numbers of the devices of interest
(whole disks and partitions) by listing the /dev directory. The major and minor number are where the size of
a regular file is, in the output of the command ls −l, separated by a comma.

# ls −l /dev/fd0 /dev/hda /dev/hda1 /dev/hdc

brw−rw−−−− 1 root disk 2, 0 Apr 11 11:25 /dev/fd0
brw−rw−−−− 1 root disk 3, 0 Apr 11 11:25 /dev/hda
brw−rw−−−− 1 root disk 3, 1 Apr 11 11:25 /dev/hda1
brw−rw−−−− 1 root disk 22, 0 Apr 11 11:25 /dev/hdc

The command set −e instructs the shell to abort the script should any command return non−zero code. The
message"Kernel panic: Attempted to kill init!" will follow, as in case of normal end. Don't panic! This is
normal, given the circumstances. Just turn off the computer. Press Ctrl−Alt−Del to have a smooth reboot
before exiting the script to avoid this ugly message.

The command insmod will load the network interface module and the command dhcpcd will start DHCP
client. Note that the fact that Grub used DHCP during its boot has nothing to do with Linux doing the same.

The script makes a big loop and, for each iteration, it asks for one of three operations: Copy from network to
device, Copy from device to network or Run fdisk. Then the script asks which block device to use. The
array major_a holds the major number for the block devices allowed to be used and the array family_a
the respective names for the device families. Next, the script asks the minor number of the block device to be
used.

6.1. Saving and restoring disk images

If one of the copy operations is selected, the script asks for the name of the image to be saved or restored. The
image name is limited to the elements of the array image_a. A named pipe with the same name as the image
is created if doesn't exist. Finally, dd and tftp are invoked simultaneously to transfer the image. Unlike
regular ftp, tftp puts and gets named pipes just like regular files.

6.2. Using fdisk

If fdisk command is selected it is invoked for the block device. fdisk is normally run for the whole disk as
opposed to one partition. Note that what normally is called /dev/hda will be called /dev/hda0 by the
clone script. The input of fdisk could be put in the script to make automatic creation of partitions if desired.

6. Running the clone script 10

7. Extending the solution
7.1. Saving and restoring files instead of file systems
If you don't want to save a whole disk image just the files within the file system, you can use a similar
solution but with tar or cpio instead of dd. Also you need to mount the file system. More commands should
be added to the clone script as shown below.

# mkdir /mnt
# mount ${device_name} /mnt
# mknod ${image} p
# tftp ${tftp_server} <<−EOT &
binary
put ${image}
EOT
tar czf ${image}

or

# tftp ${tftp_server} <<−EOT &

binary
get ${image}
EOT
tar xzf ${image}

You have to put the mkdir and tar programs in the initrd image so that the script can use them.

7.2. Setting up the master boot record

In a situation where you used this setup to reorganize and resize your partitions, you may end up with a disk
that doesn't boot. Running the setup command from Grub (including the grub program in the image) should
resolve the situation. See the Grub documentation for details.

7.3. Loading necessary modules

Depending on your kernel, additional modules may be necessary to access some block devices like SCSI
devices. Just put the necessary modules in the /lib directory of the initrd image and the correspondent
insmod commands in the clone script. The same applies for file systems. If, for instance, you want save the
files instead of the image of a fat file system you will need the fat.o and vfat.o modules.

7.4. Predefined operations on grub.conf

The Grub menu file grub.conf may be customized to present a few copy options or even execute a
predefined operation such as repartitioning the disk and retrieving specified images from network. Again, you
can use the concepts presented here to achieve a specific application.

7. Extending the solution 11

A. List of files on initrd
/bin/
/bin/bash
/bin/clone
/bin/dd
/bin/gzip
/bin/mknod
/bin/mount
/bin/tftp
/dev/
/dev/console
/dev/null
/etc/
/etc/dhcpc/
/etc/hosts
/etc/nsswitch.conf
/etc/protocols
/etc/services
/lib/
/lib/3c59x.o
/lib/i686/
/lib/i686/libc−2.2.5.so
/lib/i686/libc.so.6
/lib/ld−2.2.5.so
/lib/ld−linux.so.2
/lib/libdl−2.2.5.so
/lib/libdl.so.2
/lib/libnss_files−2.2.5.so
/lib/libnss_files.so.2
/lib/libtermcap.so.2
/lib/libtermcap.so.2.0.8
/proc/
/sbin/
/sbin/dhcpcd
/sbin/fdisk
/sbin/insmod
/tmp/
/var/
/var/run/

A. List of files on initrd 12

B. Clone script
#!/bin/bash

set −e

export PATH=/sbin:/bin

tftp_server=10.0.0.1
nic_module=3c59x.o
major_a=(2 3 22)
family_a=(fd hda hdc)
image_a=(img0001 img0002 img0003 img0004)

operation_a=( "Copy from network to device" \

"Copy from device to network" \
"Run fdisk")

mount −t proc proc /proc

insmod /lib/${nic_module}
/sbin/dhcpcd

while true; do \
[ ! −z "${image}" ] && unset image
echo
echo "Clone Menu"
echo
echo "Operation"
echo
PS3="Choose operation (1−${#operation_a[*]}): "
select operation in "${operation_a[@]}"; do \
[ −z "${operation}" ] && continue
echo
echo $REPLY − $operation
echo
break
done

echo "Device Family"

echo
PS3="Choose device family (1−${#family_a[*]}): "
select family in "${family_a[@]}"; do \
[ −z "${family}" ] && continue
echo
echo $REPLY − $family
echo
break
done

major_i=$[REPLY−1]
major=${major_a[$major_i]}

echo "Minor Number"

echo
PS3="Choose minor number (0−255): "
echo −n "$PS3" >&2
read minor
minor=$[minor%256]
echo
echo $minor
echo

B. Clone script 13
 HOWTO Clone Disk Images on Linux Booted from a Network

if [ "${operation}" != "${operation_a[2]}" ]; then \

echo "Image"
echo
PS3="Choose image (1−${#image_a[*]}): "
select image in "${image_a[@]}"; do \
[ −z "${image}" ] && continue
echo
echo $REPLY − $image
echo
break
done
image_i=$[REPLY−1]
image=${image_a[${image_i}]}
fi

echo
echo −e "Operation:\t$operation"
device_name=/dev/${family_a[${major_i}]}${minor}
echo −e "Device:\t\t${device_name} ($major, $minor)"
[ ! −z "${image}" ] && echo −e "Image:\t\t${image}"
echo

echo "Confirmation"
echo
PS3="Ok/Cancel (1−2): "
select ok in Ok Cancel; do \
[ −z "${ok}" ] && continue
echo
echo $REPLY − $ok
echo
break
done
if [ "${ok}" = "Ok" ]; then \
if [ ! −b ${device_name} ]; then \
echo "Creating ${device_name}"
mknod ${device_name} b ${major} ${minor}
fi
if [ ! −z "${image}" ]; then \
if [ ! −p ${image} ]; then \
echo "Creating pipe"
mknod ${image} p
fi
fi
if [ "${operation}" = "${operation_a[0]}" ]; then \
tftp ${tftp_server} <<−EOT &
binary
get ${image}
EOT
gzip −c −d < ${image} | dd of=${device_name}
elif [ "${operation}" = "${operation_a[1]}" ]; then \
tftp ${tftp_server} <<−EOT &
binary
put ${image}
EOT
dd if=${device_name} | gzip −c > ${image}
elif [ "${operation}" = "${operation_a[2]}" ]; then \
fdisk ${device_name}
fi
echo
fi

B. Clone script 14
 HOWTO Clone Disk Images on Linux Booted from a Network
echo "Continuation"
echo
PS3="Continue/Exit (1−2): "
select new in Continue Exit; do \
[ −z "${new}" ] && continue
echo
echo $REPLY − $new
echo
break
done
[ "${new}" = "Exit" ] && break
done
exit 0

B. Clone script 15
References

[grub] GRUB.

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/

References 16