[H-GEN] Problem using Ghost to rollout/clone Linux systems

Ewan Edwards ewane at mincom.com
Sun Aug 26 06:46:17 EDT 2001


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If you have experience with using Ghost for Linux systems, read on.

I have built a Linux system (RH7.1) on a standard machine (for our
office) and taken a disc image using Symantec Ghost Enterprise 6.04.

Problem is that every time I try to make a clone from the image the new
machine will not boot properly.  All I get is a kernel panic when it is
trying to mount the root file system.

LILO (installed in MBR of /dev/hda1) apparantly loads and executes the
kernel, then the kernel seems to start initialising all the compiled in
drivers (ie: I see the various boot time messages that can be reviewed
with the dmesg command after boot).  At the point the original machine
displays a message; "VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.",
the clones display a message about not being able to mount the root
file system.  In that message is something about using a "root="
parameter and a "boot=" parameter.

I have checked the lilo.conf on the original machine to ensure both
"boot=/dev/hda" and "root=/dev/hda1" exist.  I have even re-run lilo
before creating a new image.  This has made no difference to the
resulting clones.  I use the Ghost Multicast Server utility with the
Ghost client boot disc to get the images and to create the clones. 
These tools work well when rolling out NT4 & W2k clones on the same
hardware.

Any clues or assistance on this would be much appreciated.  I'm trying
to get a number of our developers off Windoze and on to Linux, so that
the product(s) we develope will have a much better chance of being
platform independant.


-- 
____________________________________________________________________________
Ewan Edwards BE MIEAust CPEng MCSE 		Development Support Engineer
Mincom Pty Limited				Phone:	+61 7 3303 3554
193 Turbot Street				Mobile:	+61 4 1147 5518
Brisbane QLD 4000				E-mail:	ewane at mincom.com
____________________________________________________________________________

I am far too young to be this old.
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