Modify Clonezilla

Posted on 2011/08/12 by claw

At work i need to use an application that can store and restore images of an computer. I am using Clonezilla to do so. Clonezilla is an distribution of Debian(sid) which does all those jobs. The advantage is that it is very customizable. Because i am storing all the images at the same space and using the same network setup i has become contra productive to setup it again and again for every single image . Thank god Clonezilla can run a prerunscript which does this for me. If you want to do the same get the lastest version of clonezilla as .zip file and extract it. Changes need to be done in the /syslinux/syslinux.cfgfile which defines the menu is shown when booting clonezilla.

label RESTORE
MENU DEFAULT
# MENU HIDE
MENU LABEL Restore
# MENU PASSWD
kernel /live/vmlinuz
append initrd=/live/initrd.img boot=live config  noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset ocs_prerun="mount -t cifs -o user=admin,domain=domain.net 172.28.64.141:/Images /home/partimag" ocs_live_run="/opt/drbl/sbin/ocs-sr -u restoredisk ask_user sda" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_keymap="" ocs_live_batch="no" ocs_lang="en_US.UTF-8" vga=788 toram=filesystem.squashfs nosplash
TEXT HELP
Restore a stored image
ENDTEXT
label STORE
# MENU DEFAULT
# MENU HIDE
MENU LABEL Store
# MENU PASSWD
kernel /live/vmlinuz
append initrd=/live/initrd.img boot=live config  noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset noprompt ocs_prerun="mount -t cifs -o user=admin,domain=domain.net 172.28.64.141:/Images /home/partimag" ocs_live_run="/opt/drbl/sbin/ocs-sr -u -q2 -z1p -i 2048 -p poweroff savedisk ask_user sda" ocs_live_extra_param="" ocs_live_keymap="" ocs_live_batch="no" ocs_lang="en_US.UTF-8" vga=788 toram=filesystem.squashfs nosplash
TEXT HELP
Store an image
ENDTEXT

Here we have two menu entries, i replaced those i did not need. I will explain the meaning of the syntax now for you:

label – Defines the option just for the config an can be set with any value
MENU DEFAULT – This defines which option should be booted if the countdown is over (define only once in config, use # for the rest)
MENU HIDE - Hides the menu.
MENU LABEL – The Label that is shown in menu.
MENU PASSWD – You could ask for an password when choosing the option but it is not needed to me.
“kernel /live/vmlinuzappend initrd=/live/initrd.img boot=live config noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset” – Starts clonezilla as it is.
ocs_prerun=”mount -t cifs -o user=administrator,domain=domain.net 172.28.64.141:/Images /home/partimag” ocs_live_run=”/opt/drbl/sbin/ocs-sr -u restoredisk ask_user sda” ocs_live_extra_param=”" ocs_live_keymap=”/usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwertz/de-latin1.kmap.gz” ocs_live_batch=”no” ocs_lang=”en_US.UTF-8″ vga=788 toram=filesystem.squashfs nosplash- Here it becomes very tricky. Do not worry i will explain it for you:
- ocs_prerun= – Commands in this value will run before clonezilla starts.
- mount -t cifs -o- mounts a samba share with parameters:
  - user =admin – Login as “admin”
  - domain=domain.net – name of the domain (if you don’t know leave it blank. Home spaces do not use domains )
  - 172.28.64.141:/Images – Place where the Images are stored or should be placed
  - /home/partimag – Clonezilla mounts the images here which is the reason it does not ask for any other place to search for the images.
- ocs_live_run=”/opt/drbl/sbin/ocs-sr -u restoredisk ask_user sda” - ocs_live_run is defined two times in my config. This one runs the restore function of Clonezilla.
- ocs_live_run=”/opt/drbl/sbin/ocs-sr -u -q2 -z1p -i 2048 -p poweroff savedisk ask_user sda- This is the second entry which runs the store function:
  - -u - Asks the user for the image name (could be set in config too).
  - restoredisk or savedisk - Which mode to run ? store, restore, partition or hard-drive ?
  - ask_user - This would be the name of the image but “-u” requests it from user.
  - sda – Which hard-drive should be written or red.
  - -q2 – Use “partclone”. I am preferring this .
  - -z1p – Use gzip-Kompression (with multicore)
  - -i 2048 – Splitzise in megabyte (Split every 2GB a new file for the backup.)
  - -p poweroff - power off after successfully running the script.
- toram=filesystem.squashfs – Extracts all files to a ramdisk. Therefore you can remove the stick when clonezilla is booted.

After we modified our script we can flash it to an flashdrive (e.g using UnetBootIn or something like that) and test it.

If you have any problems with this how-to feel free to ask me for help and more information.

Endless while loop

Posted on 2011/06/17 by claw

Diesen Artikel gibt es auch in Deutsch!
This is a short How-to for a while loop which echoes “LOOP!” :

while(true)
do echo "LOOP!"
sleep 3
done

while: starts the loop (in the brackets there is the constraint). Because an undefined variable is always “true” the loop will restart endless.
do: Contains what the loop should do. For this example it echoes “Loop!”.
sleep X – The script wait X second before continuing. (3 seconds here).
done – Ends the loop

You can save the script and run it in shell using “bash SCRIPTNAME” or use “chmod a+x” to make it runnable and start it by clicking at it.

Hanvon Art Master Driver for Linux

Posted on 2011/06/15 by claw

I bought an Art Master 0806 this weekend and had to recognize that it does not work with Debian or even Ubuntu.

With Google i found an initial release of an driver but this one did not work too. Well the motion worked but the pressure did not.

So i contacted “Ond” ,the developer of the driver and we worked together to fix the problem. Within two days the driver worked with all features.

How to set the driver up:

It has to be compiled by your self
Download the driver if you are using a Linux Kernel >3.2 use this driver.
Unpack the Tar-Zip with ‘tar xfvz [ARCHIVE NAME].tgz’
Navigate with ‘cd’ to the folder where the unpacked driver is
Use ‘make’ for compiling
If there is no error message you can use ‘insmod hanvon.ko’ for binding it.
The Tablet should now be usable

If you have any problems feel free to ask me for help.

The driver has been tested only with:

Hanvon Artmaster 0806,1107 and the 1209
Rollik RL0604, RL0504
Hanvon Armaster III (AM3M)
GraphicPal 0806

If you tried using it with another model please report your results to me.

If you want the driver to be loaded on boot next time you have to move the hanvon.ko to /lib/modules/your-kernel/kernel/drivers/input/tablet .

# mv ./hanvon.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/input/tablet

update the modules database now.

# depmod

and add hanvon to /etc/modules

# echo “hanvon” > /etc/modules

Now the Module should be loaded automatic next time you boot. You can verify that by running:

# modprobe hanvon

If no error is reported everything is fine.

Edit1: Markus Zucker made a patch, that adds support for the Hanvon Artmaster AM 1209 to the driver

Edit2: Stephan contacted me because his 1107 was not working with this driver. I did the modification to make it able to use it.

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Tag Archives: How to

Modify Clonezilla

Endless while loop

Hanvon Art Master Driver for Linux