this is obsolete doc -- see http://doc.nethence.com/ instead

Manually ghost and rescue 

Preparation 

To get the best compression ratio, zero the empty space on each filesystem or partition. 

On UNIX, 

cd path/to/mount_point

dd if=/dev/zero bs=1024k of=dummy.2000

#cat /dev/zero > /dummy.2000

rm -f dummy.2000

On Windows use Matthias's little Pascal program (http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/nullfile-1.02.exe), 

nullfile-1.02.exe

Note. source : http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/nullfile-1.02.pas 

Note. otherwise SDelete (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/SDelete.mspx) could do the job, 

rem sdelete -c

rem sdelete -c d:

Note. don't use 'cipher /W:C:', the subsequent passes don't write zeros but 0xFF, random numbers, ... 

Ghost with NetBSD through NFS 

Boot with NetBSD installation CD or memory stick and exit to the prompt. 

Look for network interfaces and configure your network, 

ifconfig -a

dhclient fxp0

Mount some NFS share, 

cd /

mkdir -p install

mount -t nfs NFSSRV:/path/to/install install

cd install

Ghost the whole MBR including the partition table, 

dd if=/dev/rwd0d bs=512 count=1 of=hostname.mbr

now choose which slice(s) vs. BSD partition(s) you need to ghost and proceed, 

fdisk wd0

disklabel wd0

dd if=/dev/rwd0e ibs=1m | gzip -1 > hostname.rwd0e.gz

To restore the whole MBR including the partition table, 

dd if=hostname.mbr of=/dev/rwd0d

check for slices, BSD partitions and restore, 

fdisk wd0

disklabel wd0

dd if=hostname.rwd0e.gz ibs=1m | gzcat > /dev/wd0e

Ghost with Slackware through NFS 

Boot with Slackware Linux installation CD or usbboot.img. 

Automaticly enable your network card (Slackware script), 

network

then look for your network interface and perform a DHCP request, 

ifconfig -a

dhcpcd eth0

Mount some NFS share, 

cd /

mkdir -p install

mount -t nfs-o nolock NFSSRV:/path/to/install install

Note. no rc.d/rc.rpc init script on the install media, hence the nolock option 

Ghost the whole MBR including the partition table, 

dd if=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1 of=hostname.mbr

now choose which DOS partition(s) you need to ghost and proceed, 

fdisk -l /dev/sda

dd if=/dev/sda1 bs=1m | gzip -1 > hostname.sda1.gz

To restore the whole MBR including the partition table, 

dd if=hostname.mbr of=/dev/sda

check for DOS partitions and restore, 

fdisk -l /dev/sda

dd if=hostname.sda1.gz bs=1m | gzcat > /dev/sda1

The NetBSD G4U method 

With NetBSD installation CD or memory stick, we got USB w/o the need to recompile G4U. 

To ghost, 

cat > ftpput <<EOF9

#!/bin/ksh

tmpfile=$1

gzip_opts=$2

[[ ! -f $tmpfile ]]

then

        echo Usage: $0 tmpfile gzip_opts

        exit 1

fi

( cat $tmpfile

  dd bs=1m | gzip $gzip_opts

) | ftp -n

EOF9

cat > tmpfile <<EOF9

open FTPSRV

user FTPUSER FTPPASS

bin

put - hostname.rwd0d.gz

bye

EOF9

dd if=/dev/rwd0d ibs=1m | progress sh ftpput tmpfile -1

Note. if you stop and reexecute the command, the transfer starts over and the file gets rewritten 

To restore, 

#ftp -o "| progress -z dd obs=1m of=/dev/rwd0d" ftp://FTPUSER@FTPSRV/install/hostname.rwd0d.gz

Note. netcat is also an option. 

Alternatives through NFS 

To ghost, 

#gzip -1 < /dev/wd0e > hostname.wd0e.gz

#gzip -1 < /dev/sda1 > hostname.sda1.gz

To restore, 

#gzcat < hostname.rwd0e.gz > /der/wd0e

#gzcat < hostname.sda1.gz > /der/sda1

Alternatives through SSH/RSH 

To ghost, 

#gzip -1 -c /dev/sda1 | time ssh SRV cat '>'/install/hostname.sda1.gz

#dd if=/dev/sda1 bs=1m | gzip -1 | time ssh SRV cat '>'/install/hostname.sda1.gz

#gzip -1 -c /dev/sda1 | (ssh SRV "cd /install && cat > hostname.sda1.gz")

Note. try RSH instead of SSH 

Note. for XEN P2V guest images, do not compress, 

#dd if=/dev/sda1 bs=1m of=hostname.sda1

To restore, 

#time ssh SRV cat /install/hostname.sda1.gz | gzip -dc > /dev/sda1

#(ssh SERVER "cat /install/hostname.sda1.gz") | gzcat > /dev/sda1

Software 

There's a few tools available to automate the process : 

- G4U 

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/ 

note. to create an image with G4U, 

uploaddisk SRV /install/hostname.rwd0d.gz

- G4L 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/ 

- SystemRescueCd & Partimage : 

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page 

http://www.partimage.org/ 

- CloneZilla 

- mkCDrec 

- Mondo Rescue 

References 

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/ 

http://www.usenet-forums.com/linux-general/83847-bash-progress-bar-command-like-g4u-bsd.html