CloneZilla and SL6, CentOS6, or RedHat6

Hey,
If you use SL6, CentOS6, or even RedHat6 and you wish to use CloneZilla to save an image for that rainy day that always seems to come then don't use the standard CloneZilla release. I had been experiencing hit and miss success using the standard release (mainly miss) here lately. The problem was after restoring an image my PC/laptop wouldn't boot (I deleted my SL6.1 image thinking it was corrupt... ). I discovered that grub was not being installed properly. I dug a little bit and found a post at the CloneZilla forum where a dude was having a problem with RHEL6 and CloneZilla similar to mine. Steven Shiau, I think CloneZilla's developer, suggested that he try the Alternative Stable release, based on Ubuntu Natty, saying that it was a known issue with the Debian-based standard version. Here's the link...

http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php

...remember, the Alternative Stable version.

To bring this to a close, I started using the Alternative Stable release and haven't had any trouble since. Ubuntu installs grub properly in RHEL based distros.

Hope this is helpful to you SL6, CentOS6, or RedHat6 users.

Later...

 

Have you tried to reinstall grub after an image restore? Perhaps in a console session from boot CD/USB?

And also, what did a fsck of the restored filesystem show?

 

Ocky, I believe, posted an iso file that would, if used, repair a dorked grub, but I couldn't find it in my data files stash. To be honest, I really haven't had too much trouble with a messed up grub in the past so the procedure as to how to do it manually is not fresh on my mind, though I do have it saved somewhere.

As for fsck, I haven't done one yet. Generally a file system check is done automatically if something is found off during boot up.

Later...

 

Well, I'm curious if the image is really bad or if the restored filesystem is really bad. My first thought is that the grub binary doesn't get restored at the exact same disk sector and the MBR boot code can't find the binary to load. You could boot from any linux livecd and take a simple look at the filesystem. If the restored filesystem is accessible and looking alright (you could use sha256sum to verify integrity of all files)

I imagine a nice project based on a minimal CentOS installation. It would help the developer if you report to him your findings.

 

The image I'm using right now, and have saved, was actually non-bootable yesterday. I switched to Lucid afterwards and did my research, found the post I mentioned, downloaded the 7-21-11 Natty alternative stable iso, used it to re-image the afore mentioned CentOS image, and she booted right up. Since then I have switched between Lucid and CentOS about 3 or 4 times with no problems. So, to answer your question, the image is good but the Debian version of CloneZilla (the standard release version) was unable to properly re-install grub whereas the Ubuntu version could.

Later...

 

by the way Trespasser may right because SL6 centos 6 and RHEL 6 all use same old grub 1 which have problem at starting with ubuntu as well but it sorted out i guess same kinda bug might be there in debian.

well thanks for sharing info

at end what matter is what works its no big diffrence between ubuntu/debian clonezilla so i can go with ubuntu as well

if you try even today ubuntu 10.10 alternative unless it been updated cd you see there very strong bug which cannot let you install boot flag during LVM + encrypted install.

 

Mack_Guy, and Ocky if you read this, have you had any trouble doing a restore with CloneZilla with relation to SL6? I get the impression you haven't.

Later...

 

To be honest with Trespasser i try only CloneZilla as try mode test also i win paragon key on wilderssecurity forums many thanks to them

but in reallty i used to use fedora which i use to formated ........ after 7 and half months since new one is always too tempting to try but since i get to SL now i defenetly try to clone my partition with new clonezilla

 

To make a simple bootable rescue cd for SL 6.1 which uses grub 0.97 you can do as follows:-

Uses the GRUB files "menu.lst" and "stage2_eltorito".

mkdir -p iso/boot/grub
cp /usr/share/grub/x86_64-redhat/stage2_eltorito iso/boot/grub
su -c "cp /boot/grub/menu.lst iso/boot/grub"
su -c "mkisofs -R -b boot/grub/stage2_eltorito -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o grub.iso iso"
This last command generates a file grub.iso which can burned to CD or DVD.

Then boot from the cd and at the grub prompt type and press enter after ea. line. (My setup - change the first line for your system. (grub> find /boot/grub/stage1). Also change the second line root=/dev/xxxx accordingly.

root (hd1,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-131.12.1.el6.x86_64 root=/dev/sdb6
initrd /boot/initramfs-2.6.32-131.12.1.el6.x86_64.img
boot

You can use tab completion, eg. on the second line kernel /boot/vmlinuz TAB will show you the three kernels you have so you can also decide which one to boot into.

For the reference concerning grub2 you wrere looking for.. https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1671994&postcount=12