Cloning XenServer on USB or SD
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@scottalanmiller said
You can clone with it still in.
We were discussing this in the USB cloning thread.
Tell us more!
(WE also discussed using CloneZilla, but for people unfamiliar with how it works, and trying to clone two identical drives, that might get messy. I guess you could always use two different types of drives of the same size to make it easier.)
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The standard tool for cloning is the dd command. No third party tools needed.
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@scottalanmiller said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
The standard tool for cloning is the dd command. No third party tools needed.
Can you provide a sample step by step, as I've not used DD on linux before and the documentation I've seen has been "sloppy" IMO.
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Can you use dd to save it to a file, which can then be pushed to a different USB stick later?
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@Danp said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
Can you use dd to save it to a file, which can then be pushed to a different USB stick later?
Yes. The "file" would be what you'd call an ISO file in the Windows world.
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@DustinB3403 said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
@scottalanmiller said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
The standard tool for cloning is the dd command. No third party tools needed.
Can you provide a sample step by step, as I've not used DD on linux before and the documentation I've seen has been "sloppy" IMO.
Assuming the devices refer to the two USB devices:
dd if=dev/sda1 of=/dev/sdb1 -
@Danp said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
Can you use dd to save it to a file, which can then be pushed to a different USB stick later?
dd if=dev/sda1 of=/tmp/mybootusb.iso -
Where was all this when I was talking about ways to do this remotely??
dd makes an exact clone?
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@BRRABill said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
Where was all this when I was talking about ways to do this remotely??
dd makes an exact clone?
Yep.
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@scottalanmiller said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
@DustinB3403 said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
@scottalanmiller said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
The standard tool for cloning is the dd command. No third party tools needed.
Can you provide a sample step by step, as I've not used DD on linux before and the documentation I've seen has been "sloppy" IMO.
Assuming the devices refer to the two USB devices:
dd if=dev/sda1 of=/dev/sdb1Is sda1 the device being copied from or is sdb1 the device being copied?
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Just guessing, but
if= input file andof= output file -
@Danp said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
Just guessing, but
if= input file andof= output fileThat is a rational guess.
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@DustinB3403 That's me... Mr. Rational.
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@Danp said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
Just guessing, but
if= input file andof= output fileYup, that's what they mean.
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How does dd (and CloneZilla too, I presume) work if the drive you are cloning to is larger.
Say I have a 32GB and clone to a 64GB. Can you do that? Does it just leave empty space on the larger drive?
I was wondering if you could clone to a larger drive, that I could clone my 32GB boot USB to a 64GB USB, THEN run the upgrade so it will use the larger partition sizes.
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@BRRABill said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
How does dd (and CloneZilla too, I presume) work if the drive you are cloning to is larger.
Say I have a 32GB and clone to a 64GB. Can you do that? Does it just leave empty space on the larger drive?
It's a straight copy, block by block. It doesn't care what size the drive is. It just writes to it identically. It ignores that the device might be larger. It will clone to smaller too and just fails when it fills up too quickly.
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@scottalanmiller said
It's a straight copy, block by block. It doesn't care what size the drive is. It just writes to it identically. It ignores that the device might be larger. It will clone to smaller too and just fails when it fills up too quickly.
So what I want to do should theoretically work?
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@BRRABill said in Cloning XenServer on USB or SD:
@scottalanmiller said
It's a straight copy, block by block. It doesn't care what size the drive is. It just writes to it identically. It ignores that the device might be larger. It will clone to smaller too and just fails when it fills up too quickly.
So what I want to do should theoretically work?
You'd be able to write to a larger device, but trying to change the partitions by hand seems like a bad idea.
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@DustinB3403 said
You'd be able to write to a larger device, but trying to change the partitions by hand seems like a bad idea.
I wouldn't do it by hand. I am ASSUMING (lol) that the XS upgrade would do that for me, as I think it says it does.
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Clonezilla has and expert option that allows you to set additional settings to grow the partitions proportionally to fill the larger disk.
You can also restore to a smaller disk, as long as your data portion is smaller than the actual amount of space on the new drive, but it's much more difficult to get to work.
