Any specific advice for creating DI of a Linux server HDD?

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Kari R Smith

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Jul 11, 2017, 12:09:58 PM7/11/17
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Hello –

Asking for myself – is there anything I should be aware of in using Guymager to create a DI of a Linux server?   There are two partitions on the disk … one is 20GB and the other is 465GB.  Running the Disk Imaging process will grab both, correct?

 

Is there a simply Linux command that I can also use to just do a copy of the 465 GB of files on the partition?

 

Thanks for the help!

 

Kari

 

Kari R. Smith

Digital Archivist and Program Head for Born-digital Archives

Institute Archives and Special Collections

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries, Cambridge, Massachusetts

617.253.5690   smithkr at mit.edu   http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/  @karirene69

 

Donald Mennerich

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Jul 11, 2017, 12:26:46 PM7/11/17
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Kari,

If it's not a currently mounted disk you can use dd or ewfacquire to image a specific volume on a device, you just need to pass the correct point in the device tree, which can be determined by running 'sudo fdisk -l' presuming your on Linux. On a mac it's 'sudo diskutil list'

Don

Donald R. Mennerich, digital archivist
New York University Libraries

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Porter Olsen

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Jul 11, 2017, 12:27:39 PM7/11/17
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Hi Kari,
I wrote a rather detailed blog post on imaging Linux servers for MITH a little white back. Here's a link: http://mith.umd.edu/hacking-miths-legacy-servers/

The three things to look for are: 1) Are the drives SCSI drives (can dictate how you go about capturing the image). 2) Are the hard drives configured in a RAID array (and if so, which type)? And 3) are they configured in a logical volume? If one or both of these last two questions are "yes," then you will need to capture the disk images in such a way that you can recreate both the RAID and the LV in the access environment. (In my experience most commercial Linux servers--IBM, HP, etc.--use both RAID arrays and LV's). If the answer is "no," then capturing the disk images should work like any other hard drive.

I wrote a How-To for reconstructing a RAID array and/or an LV from disk images in an access environment that I can send you directly if you would like.

Porter

On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 12:09 PM, Kari R Smith <smi...@mit.edu> wrote:

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Kari R Smith

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Jul 11, 2017, 12:28:17 PM7/11/17
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Thanks, Don.  What about if the disk is still in the computer box (housing)?

 

Kari R. Smith

Digital Archivist and Program Head for Born-digital Archives

Institute Archives and Special Collections

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries, Cambridge, Massachusetts

617.253.5690   smithkr at mit.edu   http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/  @karirene69

 

From: bitcurat...@googlegroups.com [mailto:bitcurat...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Donald Mennerich
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2017 12:27 PM
To: bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Any specific advice for creating DI of a Linux server HDD?

 

Kari,

If it's not a currently mounted disk you can use dd or ewfacquire to image a specific volume on a device, you just need to pass the correct point in the device tree, which can be determined by running 'sudo fdisk -l' presuming your on Linux. On a mac it's 'sudo diskutil list'

Don


Donald R. Mennerich, digital archivist

New York University Libraries

 

On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 12:09 PM, Kari R Smith <smi...@mit.edu> wrote:

Hello –

Asking for myself – is there anything I should be aware of in using Guymager to create a DI of a Linux server?   There are two partitions on the disk … one is 20GB and the other is 465GB.  Running the Disk Imaging process will grab both, correct?

 

Is there a simply Linux command that I can also use to just do a copy of the 465 GB of files on the partition?

 

Thanks for the help!

 

Kari

 

Kari R. Smith

Digital Archivist and Program Head for Born-digital Archives

Institute Archives and Special Collections

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries, Cambridge, Massachusetts

617.253.5690   smithkr at mit.edu   http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/  @karirene69

 

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Kari R Smith

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Jul 11, 2017, 12:36:11 PM7/11/17
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Hi Porter,

Thank you for the link to your blog post … I was remembering you had written it but hadn’t gotten to look it over yet.  Question – in t epost you mention that the BitCurator Live CD is the option of choice and that if that’s not possible (I don’t know enough about the machine yet) that I should use the http://www.ubuntu-mini-remix.org/   however, that URL domain expired 7/1/2017 and there’s no direct link to it any more – still something I should pursue?

 

Can I boot off an externally USB connected DVD or does it have to be an internal drive?

 

I promise to write up and share what I end up doing for the benefit of the community.

 

Kari R. Smith

Digital Archivist and Program Head for Born-digital Archives

Institute Archives and Special Collections

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries, Cambridge, Massachusetts

617.253.5690   smithkr at mit.edu   http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/  @karirene69

 

From: bitcurat...@googlegroups.com [mailto:bitcurat...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Porter Olsen
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2017 12:28 PM
To: bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Any specific advice for creating DI of a Linux server HDD?

 

Hi Kari,

I wrote a rather detailed blog post on imaging Linux servers for MITH a little white back. Here's a link: http://mith.umd.edu/hacking-miths-legacy-servers/

The three things to look for are: 1) Are the drives SCSI drives (can dictate how you go about capturing the image). 2) Are the hard drives configured in a RAID array (and if so, which type)? And 3) are they configured in a logical volume? If one or both of these last two questions are "yes," then you will need to capture the disk images in such a way that you can recreate both the RAID and the LV in the access environment. (In my experience most commercial Linux servers--IBM, HP, etc.--use both RAID arrays and LV's). If the answer is "no," then capturing the disk images should work like any other hard drive.

I wrote a How-To for reconstructing a RAID array and/or an LV from disk images in an access environment that I can send you directly if you would like.

Porter

 

On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 12:09 PM, Kari R Smith <smi...@mit.edu> wrote:

Hello –

Asking for myself – is there anything I should be aware of in using Guymager to create a DI of a Linux server?   There are two partitions on the disk … one is 20GB and the other is 465GB.  Running the Disk Imaging process will grab both, correct?

 

Is there a simply Linux command that I can also use to just do a copy of the 465 GB of files on the partition?

 

Thanks for the help!

 

Kari

 

Kari R. Smith

Digital Archivist and Program Head for Born-digital Archives

Institute Archives and Special Collections

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries, Cambridge, Massachusetts

617.253.5690   smithkr at mit.edu   http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/  @karirene69

 

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Porter Olsen

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Jul 11, 2017, 12:55:20 PM7/11/17
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The limitation I was working with on those servers is that they only had CD-ROM drives, not DVD drives. That meant I needed a "lightweight" version of Linux that would fit on a ~650MB CDR and boot into a liveCD mode. Sorry to see that Ubuntu Mini Remix isn't available any more, but if you run into the same limitation, you can use any lightweight Linux distro that will fit on a CDR. Lubuntu is probably a good option http://lubuntu.net/ .

If the servers have DVD drives or will boot from a USB drive, then you can use BitCurator in LiveCD/LiveUSB mode, which is far preferable for obvious reasons. If you need to boot up the server in order to get access to the disks (i.e., they're SCSI drives and you don't have a SCSI write blocker), then make sure you only boot from a liveCD/USB because booting them up in their normal mode will write data to a number of log files that include information about the server usage that you don't want to overwrite.

Porter

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Kari R Smith

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Jul 11, 2017, 1:07:47 PM7/11/17
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Porter – in your post you note that after determining the results from fdisk –l than I’ll need to know which type of RAID for which you suggest the mdadm tool.  Since that “needs to be downloaded  and installed” I’m wondering how to do that with the Bitcurator LiveCD running since I won’t be connected to a network (presumably).  Or is it okay to be connected to the Network while doing all of this?  I had assumed I should keep the machine disconnected from Internet.

 

Thank you again!

 

Kari

 

From: bitcurat...@googlegroups.com [mailto:bitcurat...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Porter Olsen
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2017 12:55 PM
To: bitcurat...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Any specific advice for creating DI of a Linux server HDD?

 

The limitation I was working with on those servers is that they only had CD-ROM drives, not DVD drives. That meant I needed a "lightweight" version of Linux that would fit on a ~650MB CDR and boot into a liveCD mode. Sorry to see that Ubuntu Mini Remix isn't available any more, but if you run into the same limitation, you can use any lightweight Linux distro that will fit on a CDR. Lubuntu is probably a good option http://lubuntu.net/ .

Porter

 

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Porter Olsen

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Jul 11, 2017, 1:35:02 PM7/11/17
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Well, booting into a liveCD with drives unmounted is a pretty safe environment, especially if all you did was use apt-get to install a single package. But, of course, you should follow whatever security protocols your institution mandates. You could also download the mdadm .deb package and install it locally using the dpkg command. https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/dpkg.html

If you can boot into the BitCurator environment (either via DVD or USB), you can use the GUI "Disks" utility, which will show you the same information. In my examples I wasn't able to get to a GUI interface, thus the need for mdadm.

Hope that helps,
Porter

On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 1:07 PM, Kari R Smith <smi...@mit.edu> wrote:

Porter – in your post you note that after determining the results from fdisk –l than I’ll need to know which type of RAID for which you suggest the mdadm tool.  Since that “needs to be downloaded  and installed” I’m wondering how to do that with the Bitcurator LiveCD running since I won’t be connected to a network (presumably).  Or is it okay to be connected to the Network while doing all of this?  I had assumed I should keep the machine disconnected from Internet.

 

Thank you again!

 

Kari

 

From: bitcurator-users@googlegroups.com [mailto:bitcurator-users@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Porter Olsen
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2017 12:55 PM

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