Best way to clone pfSense 2.0.1 nanoBSD to second Transcend 1GB IDE flash ?
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I have been using an Atom system from mini-itx.com , M82G Dual LAN thin client and installed pfSense 2.0.1 nanoBSD on a Transcend 1GB IDE flash module. Everything seems to be working well so far installing Snort and Squid from the packages menu etc. I bought a second unit for playing with when I get the first unit up and running as a firewall device. The hardware is basically an Intel 945 ITX Atom board and as well as the 44-pin IDE interface has SATA ports through which I was able to install an Ubuntu 10.04 system on an external HDD, this enabled me to load the de-compressed pfSense image to the Transcend module.
Can I dd the pfSense system as now configured back to the HDD then copy back to the second Transcend module ?. The unit has 6 USB ports as well by the way so I could also boot Ubuntu on a stick I have and merely copy to the SATA HD instead of letting it be the boot device -
One way to get a clone is, as you suggested, to boot the ubuntu HD install and dd an image from the existing CF card. Then swap the CF cards (you probably have to shutdown to do this they may not be hot swappable) and dd the image back onto the new card.
Something like the example: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/HOWTO_Install_pfSense#Linux
Perhaps:dd if=/home/yourimagefilehere.img of=/dev/sda bs=16kI'm unfamiliar with it but you get the idea. ::)
I would use a USB card reader and one of the Windows imaging programs like win32diskimager.
Steve
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Maybe an easiest way is to install pfsense in the second card and restore a backup made from the original.
Best regards
Kostas
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Maybe an easiest way is to install pfsense in the second card and restore a backup made from the original.
But this won't reinstall packages and any mods…
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I have a pfSense system with two 1GB Transcend IDE Flash modules. From time to time while running pfSense I dd```
dd if=/dev/ad0 of=/dev/ad2
I wouldn't recommend this procedure to everyone as a production backup strategy because the snapshot might capture a temporary file system state which, on restoration, results in serious file system problems. It might be good enough for your needs. Unless you put the copied disk in the same device slot as the the source disk you may see mount errors on first boot in which case you will need to apply some tweaks well documented in these forums. -
Guys, is it safe to DD while running pfSense nanobsd version? Including the small data partition at the end of the image? Is that read-only too?
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I don't have any experience with the nanoBSD variant of pfSense but since it mounts the file system readonly most of the time I would guess the likelihood of capturing a severely inconsistent file system state is considerably reduced compared with the "full" variant of pfSense.
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wallabybob, you're talking about doing a copy in pfsense , however my problem is that there's only one IDE channel on the board so I would need to copy to another external drive USB or SATA connected and then back to the destination Transcend, which I don't know how pfsense would handle so I thought may as well do the copying in Ubuntu etc.
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however my problem is that there's only one IDE channel on the board so I would need to copy to another external drive USB or …
Sorry, looks like my instincts are still in the days when motherboards had two IDE connectors.
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You still have primary and secondary devices on the one channel.
Steve
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Yes Steve, unfortunately the Transcend device is only recognised when its Master/Slave switch is set to Master on this particular board !
I sent the thing back to the supplier when it wasn't recognised by Linux thinking it faulty and was told it had to be set to Master. When I get a chance I'll try dd'ing an .img file to the HDD and then back to the new one.
Neil
