Clonezilla

Last updated
Clonezilla
Original author(s) Steven Shiau
Developer(s) NCHC Free Software Labs
Initial release8 September 2007 (2007-September-08)
Stable release
3.1.1-27 [1]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg / 8 November 2023;3 months ago (8 November 2023)
Preview release
3.1.1-1 [2] / May 7, 2023;9 months ago (2023-05-07)
Repository
Written in Perl, Unix shell
Operating system POSIX, Linux
Available inEnglish, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional)
Type Disk cloning, disk imaging, system deployment
License GPL
Website clonezilla.org

Clonezilla is an open-source suite of disk cloning, disk imaging and system deployment utilities. [3] [4] [5] Clonezilla Server Edition uses multicast technologies to deploy a single image file to a group of computers on a local area network. [5] Clonezilla was designed by Steven Shiau and developed by the NCHC Free Software Labs in Taiwan. [6] [7] [8] [9]

Contents

Clonezilla is used to deploy operating systems to computers by imaging a single computer and then deploying that image to one or more systems. [3] [10] It integrates several other open-source programs to provide cloning and imaging capabilities.

Clonezilla works by copying used blocks on the storage device (i.e. SATA SSD, HDD or NVMe SSD). [4] It is intended to support a bare-metal deployment of an operating system by booting from a preinstalled live environment. The preinstallation environment can be booted from a USB flash drive, CD/DVD-ROM or Android mobile phone. [11] [12] [5] It uses Partclone, Ntfsclone, Partimage, or dd to image the drive either over the network or to a locally-attached hard disk drive. [4]

Features

Block-level copying

Clonezilla can operate on block-level (sector by sector). Thus, its operation could be file system-agnostic. In other words, it can clone one disk to another without knowing what partitions or file systems the source disk has. This indiscriminate approach, however, is inefficient because it would mean copying every block, even if it does not contain meaningful data. Therefore, Clonezilla uses a smart file system-aware approach. It uses information from the file system to determine which blocks on a drive require copying. This ensures that only the space currently in use on the drive is copied while empty space is ignored. Clonezilla supports Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, Btrfs, NTFS, and FAT. For unsupported file systems, Clonezilla falls back to indiscriminate block-level copying. [4]

By default, clonezilla uses Partclone but may fall back to Ntfsclone, Partimage, and dd where appropriate. The app also supports LVM2 and some hardware RAID chip sets. [4]

Compression

Clonezilla uses the ZIP compression by default but can use other schemes such as gzip, LZMA or bzip2. [13] Drive images can be split into smaller files and compressed to save space on the destination drive. [4]

Encryption

Clonezilla supports creating password-protected images. [14] In addition, it can mount BitLocker-encrypted volumes.

PXE booting

Clonezilla can be booted over a computer network using PXE booting techniques. [4]

Variants

Selecting between clone and image mode Clonezilla.png
Selecting between clone and image mode
Cloning from disk to disk Clonezilla process of cloning from disk to disk.jpg
Cloning from disk to disk

There are two variants of Clonezilla: Clonezilla Live is intended to be used for imaging a single computer, while Clonezilla Server Edition (SE) is intended for mass deployment over a computer network. [4]

Clonezilla Live

Clonezilla Live can image a single computer's storage media or a single partition on the media to an image file stored on a SSH server, Samba network share, locally-attached hard disk drive or to a network filesystem file-share. [4] [5] Alternatively, Clonezilla Live can clone the data on one storage medium to another without the need to create an image file first. Image files can be deployed to the same or different computers as required.

Unlike Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office and Norton Ghost, Clonezilla lacks an agent that can be installed into the operating system. Instead, Clonezilla was designed under the assumption that the disk should be cloned without interfering with the operating system. It is booted from a preinstallation environment and operations are performed within a consistent environment. [5]

Clonezilla Server Edition (SE)

Clonezilla Server Edition (SE) can clone many computers at the same time using multicast technology over a computer network. [15] Multicast support is provided by UDPCast tool. [4]

Since such an environment is difficult to configure, users can download a Live disk that provides the operating system with all the necessary configurations already done. [4] Images are uploaded to an image repository configured by the user, which may be a local directory on the same server as Clonezilla SE or a remote location such as a network-attached storage that is accessed using SSH or Samba.

Effectiveness

Clonezilla is an effective tool for deploying software in training laboratories. [15] [3] [10] Clonezilla can sometimes be faster than Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office and Norton Ghost for both imaging and restoration but can be difficult to configure. Clonezilla, however, is not a backup or disaster recovery solution because it does not offer incremental and differential snapshots, scheduling, or interruption-free operation. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

A disk image is a snapshot of a storage device's structure and data typically stored in one or more computer files on another storage device. Traditionally, disk images were bit-by-bit copies of every sector on a hard disk often created for digital forensic purposes, but it is now common to only copy allocated data to reduce storage space. Compression and deduplication are commonly used to reduce the size of the image file set. Disk imaging is done for a variety of purposes including digital forensics, cloud computing, system administration, as part of a backup strategy, and legacy emulation as part of a digital preservation strategy. Disk images can be made in a variety of formats depending on the purpose. Virtual disk images are intended to be used for cloud computing, ISO images are intended to emulate optical media and raw disk images are used for forensic purposes. Proprietary formats are typically used by disk imaging software. Despite the benefits of disk imaging the storage costs can be high, management can be difficult and they can be time consuming to create.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Live CD</span> Complete, bootable computer installation that runs directly from a CD-ROM

A live CD is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading from a hard disk drive. A live CD allows users to run an operating system for any purpose without installing it or making any changes to the computer's configuration. Live CDs can run on a computer without secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive, or with a corrupted hard disk drive or file system, allowing data recovery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bootable business card</span>

A bootable business card (BBC) is a CD-ROM that has been cut, pressed, or molded to the size and shape of a business card. Alternative names for this form factor include "credit card", "hockey rink", and "wallet-size". The cards are designed to hold about 50 MB. The CD-ROM business cards are generally used for commercial product demos, are mailed to prospective customers, and are given away at trade shows.

Disk cloning is the process of duplicating all data on a digital storage drive, such as a hard disk or solid state drive, using hardware or software techniques. Unlike file copying, disk cloning also duplicates the filesystems, partitions, drive meta data and slack space on the drive. Common reasons for cloning a drive include; data backup and recovery; duplicating a computer's configuration for mass deployment and for preserving data for digital forensics purposes. Drive cloning can be used in conjunction with drive imaging where the cloned data is saved to one or more files on another drive rather than copied directly to another drive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ghost (disk utility)</span> Disk cloning and backup tool

GHOST, now Symantec™ GHOST Solution Suite (GSS) for enterprise, is a disk cloning and backup tool originally developed by Murray Haszard in 1995 for Binary Research. The technology was acquired in 1998 by Symantec.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diskless node</span> Computer workstation operated without disk drives

A diskless node is a workstation or personal computer without disk drives, which employs network booting to load its operating system from a server.

In computing, data recovery is a process of retrieving deleted, inaccessible, lost, corrupted, damaged, or formatted data from secondary storage, removable media or files, when the data stored in them cannot be accessed in a usual way. The data is most often salvaged from storage media such as internal or external hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), USB flash drives, magnetic tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID subsystems, and other electronic devices. Recovery may be required due to physical damage to the storage devices or logical damage to the file system that prevents it from being mounted by the host operating system (OS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BartPE</span> Software to create a customised Windows XP

BartPE is a discontinued tool that customizes Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 into a lightweight environment, similar to Windows Preinstallation Environment, which could be run from a Live CD or Live USB drive. A BartPE system image is created using PE Builder, a freeware program created by Bart Lagerweij.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windows Preinstallation Environment</span> Lightweight version of Microsoft Windows for deployment

Windows Preinstallation Environment is a lightweight version of Windows used for the deployment of PCs, workstations, and servers, or troubleshooting an operating system while it is offline. It is intended to replace MS-DOS boot disks and can be booted via USB flash drive, PXE, iPXE, CD, DVD, or hard disk. Traditionally used by large corporations and OEMs, it is now widely available free of charge via Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (WADK).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diskless Remote Boot in Linux</span>

DRBL is a NFS-/NIS server providing a diskless or systemless environment for client machines.

NetBoot was a technology from Apple which enabled Macs with capable firmware to boot from a network, rather than a local hard disk or optical disc drive. NetBoot is a derived work from the Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP), and is similar in concept to the Preboot Execution Environment. The technology was announced as a part of the original version of Mac OS X Server at Macworld Expo on 5 January 1999. NetBoot has continued to be a core systems management technology for Apple, and has been adapted to support modern Mac Intel machines. NetBoot, USB, and FireWire are some of the external volume options for operating system re-install. NetBoot is not supported on newer Macs with T2 security chip or Apple silicon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Recovery disc</span> Media intended to restore the operating system

The terms Recovery disc, Rescue Disk/Disc and Emergency Disk all refer to a capability to boot from an external device, possibly a thumb drive, that includes a self-running operating system: the ability to be a boot disk/Disc that runs independent of an internal hard drive that may be failing, or for some other reason is not the operating system to be run.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office</span> Data protection software for personal users

Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office is a software package produced by Acronis International GmbH that aims to protect the system from ransomware and allows users to backup and restore files or entire systems from a backup archive, which was previously created using the software. Since 2020, Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office includes malware and Zoom protection. The software is used by technicians to deploy operating systems to computers and by academics to help restore computers following analysis of how viruses infect computers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Live USB</span> USB drive with a full bootable operating system

A live USB is a portable USB-attached external data storage device containing a full operating system that can be booted from. The term is reminiscent of USB flash drives but may encompass an external hard disk drive or solid-state drive, though they may be referred to as "live HDD" and "live SSD" respectively. They are the evolutionary next step after live CDs, but with the added benefit of writable storage, allowing customizations to the booted operating system. Live USBs can be used in embedded systems for system administration, data recovery, or test driving, and can persistently save settings and install software packages on the USB device.

Network booting, shortened netboot, is the process of booting a computer from a network rather than a local drive. This method of booting can be used by routers, diskless workstations and centrally managed computers such as public computers at libraries and schools.

Windows Deployment Services (WDS) is a deprecated component of the Windows Server operating system that enables centralized, network-based deployment of operating systems to bare-metal computers. It is the successor to Remote Installation Services (RIS). WDS officially supports remote deployment of Windows Vista and later, as well as Windows Server 2008 and later. However, because WDS uses disk imaging, in particular the Windows Imaging Format (WIM), it could deploy virtually any operating system. This is in contrast with its predecessor, RIS, which was a method of automating the installation process.

Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit, formerly Windows Automated Installation Kit, is a collection of tools and technologies produced by Microsoft designed to help deploy Microsoft Windows operating system images to target computers or to a virtual hard disk image in VHD format. It was first introduced with Windows Vista. WAIK is a required component of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Redo Rescue</span>

Redo Rescue, formerly Redo Backup and Recovery, is a free backup and disaster recovery software. It runs from a bootable Linux CD image, features a GUI that is a front end to the Partclone command line utility, and is capable of bare-metal backup and recovery of disk partitions. It can use external hard drives and network shares.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Partclone</span> Partition clone and restore tool

Partclone is a partition clone and restore tool. It provides utilities to back up and restore partitions and is designed for higher compatibility of the file system library. It is developed by the NCHC Free Software Labs in Taiwan. It is the default backup application in Clonezilla, FOG from version 1.00 and Redo Backup and Recovery which is simply a front end to partclone. It supports many file systems and has good performance, as it skips portions of the file system marked as free space.

The FOG Project is a software project that implements FOG, a software tool that can deploy disk images of Microsoft Windows and Linux using the Preboot Execution Environment. It makes use of TFTP, the Apache webserver and iPXE. It is written in PHP.

References

  1. ↑ Steven Shiau (8 November 2023). "[Clonezilla-release] Stable Clonezilla live 3.1.1-27 Released" . Retrieved 8 November 2023.
  2. ↑ Shiau, Steven. "Clonezilla - Downloads". Clonezilla.org. Retrieved 2023-05-14.
  3. 1 2 3 Turriza, Jose Luis Lira; Manuel, José; Huh, Yaqueline Pech; Avila, Miguel Cohuo (1 February 2018). "Comparative study of restoration tools by cloning using LSP method" (PDF). Revista Ingeniantes (in English and Spanish). 5 (1): 53–59. ISSN   2395-9452. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 January 2022. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Sun, Ceasar; Shiau, Steven; Wang, Jazz; Tsai, Thomas (2012). Clonezilla: a next generation clone solution for cloud (PDF). Proceedings of the Oral presented at Open Source Conference Tokyo. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 August 2021. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Shiau, Steven J. H.; Sun, Chen-Kai; Tsai, Yu-Chin; Juang, Jer-Nan; Huang, Chi-Yo (12 June 2018). "The Design and Implementation of a Novel Open Source Massive Deployment System". Applied Sciences . MDPI. 8 (6): 965. doi: 10.3390/app8060965 . ISSN   2076-3417. OCLC   828808191.
  6. ↑ Smith, Jesse (27 March 2010). "Disk Imaging with Clonezilla". OSNews . Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  7. ↑ Wallen, Jack (10 March 2010). "Review: Clonezilla system imaging". TechRepublic . Archived from the original on 23 March 2020. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  8. ↑ Germain, Jack M. (28 December 2011). "Clonezilla: A Drive-Duping Monster With a Fearsome Face". LinuxInsider. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  9. ↑ Sharma, Mayank (2 July 2007). "Manage partitions and disks with GParted-Clonezilla live CD". Linux.com . Archived from the original on 12 April 2021. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  10. 1 2 Achmad, Arrosyidi; Edo Yonatan, Koentjoro (3 June 2018). The Comparation of The Duration of Five Software to Restore The Operating System (PDF). International Conference on Information Technology and Applications (ICITAS). Surabaya, Indonesia: Institut Bisnis dan Informatika Stikom Surabaya. pp. 91–93. Archived from the original on 17 January 2022. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  11. ↑ "DriveDroid - Apps on Google Play". play.google.com. Archived from the original on 2021-11-21. Retrieved 2020-11-26. DriveDroid allows you to boot your PC from ISO/IMG files stored on your phone. This is ideal for trying Linux distributions or always having a rescue-system on the go... without the need to burn different CDs or USB pendrives.
  12. ↑ "Use DriveDroid to install any Linux Distro from Android". Make Tech Easier. 2015-09-03. Archived from the original on 2015-09-05. Retrieved 2020-11-26. DriveDroid is an Android application that allows you to boot into a number of Linux distributions on your computer from their ISO/IMG files stored on your device. This enables you to create an emergency rescue disk on your smartphone or try out different Linux distributions instead of using many different USB pendrives or CDs.
  13. ↑ "What are the compression options in Clonezilla? What are the differences?". Clonezilla.org. Retrieved 2023-10-24.
  14. ↑ "Print all this session - Save disk image : Save 1st disk (sda) as an image on 2nd disk (sdb) (Step by step)". Clonezilla.org. Retrieved 2023-10-24.
  15. 1 2 Nugroho, Andi; Yuliadi, Boy (1 March 2020). "Effectiveness of the Application Clonezilla to Clone Image with Ubuntu Server 12.04 and Samba Server" (PDF). International Journal of Open Information Technologies. 8 (3): 26–32. ISSN   2307-8162. OCLC   859597845. Archived from the original on 21 July 2020. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  16. ↑ Gautam, Bishnu Prasad; Paudel, Dambar Raj (31 March 2012). "A NETWORK LAB EXPERIMENT OF MULTI-CLONING OF OS BY USING CLONEZILLA". 稚内北星学園大学紀要稚内北星学園大学紀要[Bulletin of Wakkanai Hokusei Gakuen University] (in Japanese and English). Wakkanai Hokusei Gakuen University (12): 51–58. ISSN   1347-7900. OCLC   1058882775.
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