This will keep you from cloning the system to incorrect or unknown clients. When setting up the DRBL server, it is recommended to collect the MAC addresses of the client computers and let the DRBL server offer the same IP address for the clients every time it boots. This Howto only covers Clonezilla server editionĪ DRBL server must first be set up in order to use Clonezilla to do massively clone. Clonezilla server edition: A DRBL server must first be set up in order to use Clonezilla to do massively clone (Both unicast and multicast are supported).Clonezilla Live: Allows you to use CD/DVD or USB flash drive to boot and run clonezilla (Unicast only).By using another free software drbl-winroll, which is also developed by us, the hostname, group, and SID of cloned MS Windows machine can be automatically changed.However, clonezilla, containing some other programs, can save and restore not only partitions, but also a whole disk. Based on Partimage, ntfsclone and dd to clone partition.You can also remotely use it to save or restore a bunch of computers if PXE and Wake-on-LAN are supported in your clients. Multicast is supported in Clonezilla server edition, which is suitable for massively clone.LVM2 (LVM version 1 is not) under GNU/Linux is supported.For unsupported file system, sector-to-sector copy is done by dd in Clonezilla.

For these file systems, only used blocks in partition are saved and restored. Therefore you can clone GNU/Linux or MS Windows.

Filesystem supported: ext2, ext3, reiserfs, xfs, jfs of GNU/Linux, and FAT, NTFS of MS Windows.

It took only about 10 minutes to clone a 5.6 GBytes system image to all 41 computers via multicasting! At the NCHC's Classroom C, Clonezilla server edition was used to clone 41 computers simultaneously. Clonezilla saves and restores only used blocks in the harddisk. While Clonezilla server edition is for massive deployment, it can clone many (40 plus!) computers simultaneously. Clonezilla live is suitable for single machine backup and restore. Two types of Clonezilla are available, Clonezilla live and Clonezilla server edition.

Well, now there is an OpenSource clone system (OCS) solution called Clonezilla with unicasting and multicasting!Ĭlonezilla, based on DRBL, Partition Image, ntfsclone, and udpcast, allows you to do bare metal backup and recovery. You've probably also heard of Symantec's solution to this problem, Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition® with multicasting. The problem with these software packages is that it takes a lot of time to massively clone systems to many computers. You're probably familiar with the popular proprietary commercial package Norton Ghost®, and its OpenSource counterpart, Partition Image.

Setting up clients to use the DRBL environment.

Set up the file system for the client in the Server.

Clonezilla image restore from network