From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 4 16:41:31 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5CE6616A400 for ; Thu, 4 May 2006 16:41:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from andrew.chace@gmail.com) Received: from nz-out-0102.google.com (nz-out-0102.google.com [64.233.162.196]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D163343D49 for ; Thu, 4 May 2006 16:41:30 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from andrew.chace@gmail.com) Received: by nz-out-0102.google.com with SMTP id i11so482662nzi for ; Thu, 04 May 2006 09:41:30 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:subject:from:to:cc:in-reply-to:references:content-type:date:message-id:mime-version:x-mailer:content-transfer-encoding; b=OnSLq3sVQ2hjHnKs8GqVz54dLZZ/aIeBFno3I3m+2kDI89CTunCU9BOH/kWTpD5iGbK+QAU3gTzoUlJE3nbNjwW/eKvhVVqwJxdb+rIzwvV6CJtNeF3wNhOOe2eKD21vsKWK+v+bcjMtrJadyeHb6Lr+8EGpvl/7BsDowNHEmGQ= Received: by 10.36.129.3 with SMTP id b3mr1282747nzd; Thu, 04 May 2006 09:41:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from netvista.network ( [70.56.4.48]) by mx.gmail.com with ESMTP id m2sm1251037nzf.2006.05.04.09.41.29; Thu, 04 May 2006 09:41:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Andrew To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <20060504141555.GA81107@it.ca> References: <1146695806.3352.14.camel@LatitudeFC5.network> <20060504141555.GA81107@it.ca> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 11:41:48 -0500 Message-Id: <1146760908.93001.43.camel@netvista.network> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.4.1 FreeBSD GNOME Team Port Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: "Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC" Subject: Re: "dd" question X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 16:41:31 -0000 On Thu, 2006-05-04 at 10:15 -0400, Paul Chvostek wrote: > On Wed, May 03, 2006 at 05:36:46PM -0500, Andrew wrote: > > On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 14:11 -0600, Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC wrote: > > > Can I used dd from my freebsd box to > > > completely copy the whole disk, partition tables and all, to another > > > disk? > ... > > have another suggestion. If you think the disk will be ok, use dd to > > "zero-out" the rest of the drive; i.e. > ... > > One of these days, I am going to write a tool to do just this sort of > > thing, since it seems to be a fairly common practice. > > I believe that tool would be g4u, http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/, along with > the FAQ at http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/#shrinkimg . You are correct; although g4u is a collection of shell scripts, not an executable. There is some debate about whether or not it needs to be anything more than a shell script, but I think it makes sense. Right now we are using a re-write of g4u with FreeSBIE to install images in a lab on campus. It sort of has a GUI; we're using 'cdialog' based menus. I would like to re-write it in C, and add most of the features listed at http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/#size. I know it would be quite difficult, but I would like to add filesystem support to this yet-to-be-written tool as well. And I think it should be multithreaded too. This list of features seems to make this more of a programming exercise than question of what's actually necessary to get the job done. Anyway... When I get around to it... -Andrew