FOG--How to Manually Restore an Image?
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Is there something that shows a detailed guide how FOG works?
What I am looking for is… If I want to use command line to manually restore an image, what commands would I type? Sometimes I would like to just plug in an Ubuntu hard drive into one non-networked computer and restore the image. Our FOG server runs at a different location, and the way the network is setup, we have many different VLANs and ACLs that keeps FOG from working at remote locations. We have a mobile server, but that takes time to setup. If I have just one computer at a remote location that needs to be imaged, I want to store the FOG image on a USB hard drive and use a live Ubuntu CD or even Clonezilla to restore that image.
Clonezilla is a different issue altogether. From what I understand, FOG uses pigz compression and a mysql database. Clonezilla uses partclone. If there was an easy way to convert a FOG image to Clonezilla, that would be helpful too! I do have ssh and ftp access to the FOG server so can get whatever data is necessary.
Any help you can give me is greatly appreciated!!
Thank you.
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@Qyjong FOG image capture and deploy are multi-step processes. each are several commands that rely on scripts and programs in the FOG OS (FOS) and change based on what options you have selected. FOG images are not designed to be used stand alone. Using FOG images without a FOG server will require steps that were expected to be automated and there really isn’t a quick way around it.
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@Qyjong FOG uses partclone, just like Clonezilla. but FOG does a lot of stuff that Clonezilla doesn’t. our images are technically compatible though.
FOG automatically resizes partitions and makes sure that data needed to boot is set correctly. but if you want, you can:
manually create/size your destination partitions
pipe your image through the appropriate decompressor (gzip or zstd) into partclone to deploy them
resize the filesystems if needed.
with any luck, it will boot without any extra steps. -
@Junkhacker Thank you for the quick reply. There does appear to be some type of compression difference between CZ and FOG. When you use Clonezilla to create an image, it creates a file with the exact command it used. I was hoping FOG did that somehow too, log the command used to create the image. I will look at it further and see what I can do.
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@Qyjong said in FOG--How to Manually Restore an Image?:
If there was an easy way to convert a FOG image to Clonezilla,
Truthfully the quickest and easiest way is to deploy and capture. You will spend less time tinkering around with this method. Depending on the size of your image, you can deploy with FOG in less than 4 minutes. Have fog power off the target computer after the deploy, then boot with clonezilla and capture. The only unknown is capture time with clonezilla. Using this method you are assured that when you capture with clonezilla all of the bits are in the right spot for clonezilla to deploy it again.
[edit] Sorry I missed the main point of your post, how to manually restore an image. If this is the case then you won’t have the ability to deploy first…
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@Qyjong FOG image capture and deploy are multi-step processes. each are several commands that rely on scripts and programs in the FOG OS (FOS) and change based on what options you have selected. FOG images are not designed to be used stand alone. Using FOG images without a FOG server will require steps that were expected to be automated and there really isn’t a quick way around it.
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Thank you all; you have answered my questions! I have about five images I use most of the time. I do believe your suggestion to deploy from FOG and then capture using CZ would be my best option! And thank you for helping me understand the fundamental differences between FOG and CZ!