The Canned OS Project

Are you still using PBA?

2009-08-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated PBA in years, but I'm curious how many people are still using it. Make a comment if you still use PBA. I know it's not the best way to track usage, but it'll at least give me a approximate sense of the user base. I'll probably look into download statistics from sourceforge as well, but that only tells me how many people downloaded PBA and doesn't get into how many people actually use it.

Wow! Grandma's still alive and kicking.

2009-05-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

It's amazing to me that there's still demand for Grandma's LAMP. A user was kind enough to post links to torrent with seeds. I'll repost them here for your convenience.

Torrent with seeds here:
http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/53746490/grandma+lamp?tab=summary

Asus Eee PC

2008-01-01T20:44:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about getting an Asus Eee PC. It runs Linux and has a solid state hard disk. I'd really like to get the 8G model, but at $499, it starts to get pricy. If it had a higher resolution display, I'd buy it immediately, but lately, I've been thinking more about getting the cheap $299 2G model. The first thing I'd do is backup the Xandros disk image with PBA and then start experimenting with other distros.

Finally, a Grandma's LAMP 1.0.1 Download Link

2008-01-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and sorry for the delay. Grandma's LAMP 1.0.1 has FINALLY been uploaded to:

http://flyupload.flyupload.com/?fid=3477667

The link should be up for 60 days. I gave it to one person back in September and, he didn't complain too much about it. Please let me know if this version of Grandma's LAMP works for you.

Also, can someone seed a torrent somewhere and let me know the torrent link?

I'm too busy these days with work, school, and family, but I hope to get some time to work on PBA again also. Thanks for your help and patience.

New Release: Grandma's LAMP 1.0.1

2007-09-02T02:26:00.000-07:00

I have a new release of Grandma's LAMP available. Version 1.0.1 uses a vmdk disk that's split into 2GB chunks, and the packages are upgraded.

I'm looking for someone who can help out by hosting direct downloads for Grandma's LAMP? Please let me know if you can help. I'll work on getting a torrent download started also. Thanks.

Someone broke Grandma's Lamp

2007-09-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

It seems the new version of VMware player checks to see whether or not the vmdk disk is spanned into 2GB chunks. Because Grandma's Lamp uses a 10GB vmdk disk in a single file, it won't run. I'm working on a new version that will correct this. For those that don't want to wait, you can always try using Personal Backup Appliance to backup and restore Grandma's LAMP to a new vmdk disk that is spanned into 2GB chunks.

Amahi

2007-07-18T22:56:00.000-07:00

This might interest some of you.

http://www.amahi.org

A PXE-enabled version of Personal Backup Appliance is integrated in the Amahi home server product.

I've been running an Amahi home server on real hardware in my home for a few months, and it's what I use exclusively for backups.

Here are some links to get started. The Amahi Project is actively seeking volunteers to deploy the Amahi into their home.

http://wiki.amahi.org/index.php/Fedora-7

PXE, NFS, blah blah

2007-06-08T08:32:00.001-07:00

I'm working on a new version of PBA that is more centered around the PXE boot client. The PXE boot client will be the default client, and NFS will be default protocol for transfer. I'm not sure if this is the best thing to do, but from a programming point of view, this greatly simplifies the code.

Personal Backup Appliance 1.1.1-RC1

2007-05-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

Download it here:

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/pba-vm/Personal-Backup-Appliance-1.1.1-vm-RC1.zip

It's a release candidate. I'd like people to test it before I make it a real release. There's a PXE server, and multicast is supported. Both are accessed through pba-server-console. By default the PXE server is not started.

The kernel served by the PXE server isn't the same as that served by the client CD. It doesn't support SCSI storage and you may have trouble with it on legacy-free systems. Other than that it works. I tested it using VMware machines with IDE storage.

If you have a lab of machines, as many as you can round up, then please help test the multicast feature with different filesystems (NTFS, ext3, LVM). I am uncertain of its robustness.

Good news...I have multicast working

2007-05-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

Good news...I have multicast working now on my test version of PBA.

A few notes:

I need to do lots of testing, and I could use some help. If you have a population of machines in a lab environment, say around ten or so, that you can dedicate to helping me test pxe and multicast, send me an email at rxhui at users dot sourceforge dot net. Please also let me know what operating systems/filesystems you can help test.
For the time being, I'm dropping multicast support of zsplit/unzsplit archives. The only reason you may have zsplit/unzsplit archives is if you created the backup with version 1.0.2. Versions after 1.0.2 use dd for raw backup. I don't think this should be a problem for most people.
Does anyone want to help with documentation? Not sure exactly what yet, but if someone is interested and motivated, I'm sure I can identify something relevant in PBA that needs better documentation.

PBA 1.1.1 is almost ready for release

2007-04-20T23:37:00.000-07:00

I've been making some progress towards the release of PBA 1.1.1. PXE support is done, and I'm working on multicast support. PXE support is cool. Clients automatically connect to the PBA server and boot straight into the PBA Client Menu--No need to enter in an IP address.

Look for the new release soon, probably within a month's time.

VirtualBox

2007-04-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

I use automatix2 on my Ubuntu machines, and today I noticed something that I didn't notice before--There was a checkbox for something called Virtual Box under the Virtualization section. After doing some research, it looks like it's based on Qemu. When I have time, I will try it.

http://www.virtualbox.org/

Convert Physical Machine to Virtual Machine

2007-03-03T23:56:00.000-08:00

You can use VMware's Converter now to convert physical machine to a virtual machine. At first glance, it looks like it'll only work with Windows. As far as I can tell, for Linux installations, I think you can still use Personal Backup Appliance to convert a physical machine to a virtual one, though it isn't as slick as VMware's Converter.

http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

Personal Backup Appliance Local Mode User Guide

2007-02-16T00:10:00.000-08:00

This is user guide for using Local Mode in PBA, a new feature in version 1.1.0. Local Mode can backup and restore your hard disk without connecting to a PBA server. Instead, backups are stored on a locally mounted volume which could be another local partition or a network volume. The addition of Local Mode makes the PBA client a stand-alone tool.

Getting the client

Download the PBA Client CD ISO here. You can also download the client from a PBA Server.
Burn the PBA Client ISO to a CD.

Running the PBA Client

Boot up the PBA Client CD on the system or VM that you want to backup. You might need to go to your computer's BIOS screen and change the boot order to boot from CD first. It will also be helpful if your network uses DHCP to assign IP addresses. After the system boots up, you'll see a screen that looks like this:
To use Local Mode, type 'local' and press [Enter].

Local Mode Backup

Use the arrow keys to select 'Backup Hard Disk (local)' from the menu and press [Enter].

In this example, I will be backing up to a windows share on my network, but you can use another local partition, an NFS partition, or whatever else you can feed to the mount command.

There are some fields that need to be filled out.

Target Path:
The Target Path is the path where the file will be saved to. If it's another volume as in this example, the Target Path is also the mount point for the volume. If the directory doesn't exist, the script will create it. In my example, the Target Path is '/root/tmp.'

Backup Filename:
The Backup Filename is the name of your backup. In my example above, the Backup Filename is 'ntfs-test.'

Mount Command:
The Mount Command is the full mount command (including switches and arguments) to mount a certain volume, local or remote, to your mount point, your Target Path. The script will automatically mount using this command and run umount when it finishes. If the volume has already been mounted prior to running PBA, you can leave this field blank. In my example above, the Mount Command is:

mount -t smbfs -o username=vmware,password=vmware //192.168.0.131/data/backup /root/tmp

Now it's your turn. Enter in values in the fields that are appropriate for your configuration. When the backup is finished, you will get a message indicating the the backup was successfully completed.

Local Mode Restore

To restore the disk in Local Mode, at the main menu, use the arrow keys to select 'Restore Hard Disk (local)' from the menu and press [Enter]. You will see a screen like this.

You'll need to fill out some fields.

Target Path:
The Target Path is the path where the saved backup is located. In my example, the Target Path is '/root/tmp.'

Mount Command:
The Mount Command field is the same as the Mount Command field for backup. See above.

Now it's your turn. Enter in values in the fields that are appropriate for your configuration. When the restore is finished, you will get a message indicating the the restore was successfully completed.

-> Discuss this article on our Discussion Forums

Sabayon Linux VM

2007-02-07T00:16:00.000-08:00

I just took a look at Distrowatch.com and it looks like there's a new distro there called Sabayon Linux. Sabayon is based on Gentoo. Sounds interesting.

A Sabayon VM that some other person created is available from VMware's site.

http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/657

Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft VM

2007-01-31T19:12:00.000-08:00

There's a new Ubuntu VM based on Edgy Eft available from VMware's site. I 've been using Edgy Eft a lot and I really like the improvements to bootup time. Here's a link for direct download:

Download

Personal Backup Appliance Getting Started

2007-01-27T21:45:00.000-08:00

This is a guide to using the Personal Backup Appliance to backup and restore your hard disk. The Personal Backup Appliance is an open source alternative to Ghost server. The Personal Backup Appliance, or PBA for short, is distributed as a VMware Virtual Appliance. Personal Backup Appliance can backup or restore your entire hard disk drive in just 3 steps. Personal Backup Appliance can be used in either PBA Mode or in Local Mode. In PBA Mode, the PBA Client is connected to a PBA Server and backups are written to the PBA Server. In Local Mode, no PBA Server is needed, but you do need to provide more information to mount a volume for storing backups. This walk-through will cover PBA Mode only.

PBA Mode: Server Setup

1. Download PBA 1.1.0
2. Unzip Personal-Backup-Appliance-1.1.0-vm.zip
3. Open the .vmx file using VMware Player or VMware Server.

After the VM boots up, you'll see a screen like this:
Please take note of the PBA's IP Address and the URL that's displayed. You'll need to use it later. Login. The login is vmware. The password is vmware.
IMPORTANT: The first thing you should do after booting up is update to 1.1.0-1 using the patch. 1.1.0-1 fixes a bug in Local Mode. To patch to 1.1.0-1, run these commands on the PBA VM. This is a temporary requirement in lieu of the next release.

# cd /home/vmware
# wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/pba-vm/pba-patch_to_1.1.0-1.zip
# unzip pba-patch_to_1.1.0-1.zip
# sh pba-patch_to_1.1.0-1.sh

When the patch process is finished, you'll see a screen like this:

Your PBA Server is all setup and ready to go. The next time you use it, all you need to do is power it on.

PBA Server Console

Version 1.1.0 has a new feature called the PBA Server Console which is started using the 'pba-server-console' command. The PBA Server Console is a management interface for deleting Backups and Creating a Rescue ISO file that you can burn onto a CD or DVD.
PBA Mode: Client Setup

Client Download

First, download the PBA Client ISO from your PBA Server. Go to your PBA's web page using your PBA's URL. On this web page, you'll find instructions on how to download the PBA Client ISO and burn it onto CD.

Here's what the web page will look like. See the download link for the Client ISO image. Download the ISO image and burn it onto a CD.
Running the PBA Client

Once you have the client CD, boot it on a computer or VM on your network that you would like to backup. To boot from CD, you may need to change the boot order in your BIOS to boot from cdrom before the hard disk. After the client CD boots, you will be greeted with a prompt asking for the IP address of your Personal Backup Appliance.
Enter in the IP address of your PBA Server, then press [Enter].
PBA Mode: Backup Hard Disk

Use the arrow keys to select "Backup Hard Disk" and then press [Enter]. You'll see a prompt that looks like this. Type in a Backup Filename and press [Enter].
The script will then chug along and backup your hard disk over the network to the PBA Server. The script will backup the MBR, the partition table, and sequentially backup each partition using partimage, ntfsclone, or dd. When the backup finishes, you'll get a screen that looks like this.
PBA Mode: Restore Hard Disk

To restore a backup, just boot from the PBA Client CD, and select 'Restore Hard Disk' from the main menu. You'll see a menu of backup archives to restore. Use the arrow keys to choose the backup archive, and then press [Enter] to start the restore.
The script will restore the MBR, the partition table, and sequentially restore each partition using partimage, ntfsclone, or dd. When the restore finishes, you'll get a screen that looks like this.
Select Quit and power off the system when you're done.

Discuss PBA, Get Help, and Share Ideas on the Discussion Forums

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PBA Patch Release 1.1.0-1

2007-01-13T23:37:00.000-08:00

There is bug with local mode in PBA version 1.1.0. It's fixed in patch release 1.1.0-1.

Details and instructions are here:

http://canned-os.hyperclock.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=24#24

Visit our New Discussion Forums

2007-01-04T00:13:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Please visit our new Discussion Forums for the the Canned OS Project (link on the right navbar).

The new format does require you to register, but managing my own Discussion Forums allows me to separate topics into categories and moderate discussions much more effectively, and over time, your posts and contributions will become the basis for a body of documentation for Personal Backup Appliance and our other releases.

I was finding it cumbersome to effectively respond to comments posted on this blog, postings on the PBA thread on the VMware site, and postings on the PBA sourceforge site, so I took down the sourceforge PBA forums, and created this single forum as the central place for help and discussion on releases from The Canned OS Project. I will still do my best to answer questions posted in these other areas, but you will get the fastest response on our Discussion Forums.

Personal Backup Appliance 1.1.0 Direct Download

2006-12-18T23:35:00.000-08:00

Direct download for Personal Backup Appliance 1.1.0 is now available.

See previous post about the torrent download for all the relevant details about this release.

Personal Backup (VMware) Appliance 1.1.0 Torrent Download

2006-12-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

Version 1.1.0 of Personal Backup Appliance is now available as a torrent download. I will be providing a direct download from PBA's sourceforge project page very soon, but I'd like to get the torrent seeded and thriving first. Enjoy.

Download: torrent

Personal-Backup-Appliance-1.1.0-vm.zip
MD5SUM: 0252feb62e9cb79478d3cd517953ed81

login: vmware
password: vmware
OS: Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6.06.1 LTS
Size: 205MB
Licence: GPL
VMware Tools Installed: Yes

List of Changes in 1.1.0
- Dapper Drake VM built from scratch
- X removed
- pba-server-console added
- delete & manage backups
- create rescue ISO from backup
- Local Mode added for backups without the need for PBA server
- Local Mode backs up to locally mounted volume
- e.g. backup to local partition
- Some architectural changes
- new client CD based on Insert 1.3.8a

Personal Backup Appliance 1.1.0 Teaser Screenshots

2006-12-12T22:21:00.000-08:00

Xubuntu Dapper Drake 6.0.6.1 VMware Virtual Appliance version 1.0.2

2006-12-06T21:08:00.000-08:00

Discuss this Xubuntu VM, Get Help, and Share Ideas on the Discussion Forums.

Hey there, while working on the next release of PBA, I took a break and did something else. I just released a new version of the Xubuntu Dapper Drake VM. Packages are updated, the kernel has been updated to the latest 686 kernel (previously it was a 386 kernel), VMware tools are updated, and the size has been slightly reduced. I may create an Edgy Eft 6.10 version at some point if I sense that people would be interested in it.

Here's all the relevant details and a torrent link for download.

Current Version: 1.0.2
Release Date: 12/6/06

OS: Xubuntu 6.06.1 LTS
Size: 458MB
VMware Tools: Installed
login: vmware
password: vmware

Download: torrent

Description:
Xubuntu is a complete GNU/Linux based system with an Ubuntu base. It's lighter, and more efficient than Ubuntu with GNOME or KDE, since it uses the Xfce Desktop environment, which makes it ideal for old or low-end machines, as well as thin-client networks.

Internet Explorer 6 Application Compatibility VPC Image

2006-12-04T20:41:00.000-08:00

I don't plan on releasing any Virtual PC Appliances anytime soon, but for what it's worth, this caught my eye. Microsoft has apparently released a Virtual PC Appliance that includes a pre-activated Windows XP SP2, IE6 and the IE7 Readiness Toolkit. Microsoft is advertising this as a way to run IE6 and IE7 on the same machine simultaneously. The part that's surprising is that they are distributing a free trial copy of Windows XP with the machine. The Windows XP installation will expire in April 2007.

Download: Virtual PC 2004 SP1
Download: Internet Explorer 6 Application Compatibility VPC Image.

Look for Personal Backup Appliance 1.1.0 on 12/17

2006-11-29T10:12:00.000-08:00

I've been busy working on the next release of Personal Backup Appliance. Previously, I mentioned that I would do a test release in early December, but I'm not going to do that anymore. With all the new features, it's complicated to generate a patch release that will apply nicely over 1.0.2. However, I decided on a release date for version 1.1.0. Personal Backup Appliance 1.1.0 will be released on December 17th.

Working on Personal Backup Appliance 1.1.0

2006-11-18T22:31:00.000-08:00

I finally have some time to work on the next release of Personal Backup Appliance. I'd like to thank all of those that sent me encouraging feedback over the past few months. Expect to see some new files to be released in December sometime. Some test files in early December, and hopefully a release by the end of the year. Here's some ramblings about what I've been working on to whet your appetite.

I've been making some architectural changes to the way PBA works. In particular, I've been breaking the functionality from the monolithic script into several command line utilities. This modularization allows me to quickly add new features. For example, I can now backup and restore to a PBA server or to a locally mounted partition on the same drive using a command-line tool, depending on what switches are specified. If time allows, I will create an option in the client GUI to do serverless local partition to file backups. This feature can potentially make the PBA client a stand-alone product that could backup and restore to a mounted volume, either local or remote. In other words, a PBA server would be optional.

I've also been playing around with adding a feature to create a system rescue CD or DVD iso from a PBA backup, similar to what you would get from big computer OEMs like Dell or HP. The iso will be based on the Insert PBA client.

Finally, I intend to move the VM to Dapper Drake. I don't know if I will be able to keep the size small, so the 1.1.0 release may be larger than desired.

I might throw in multicast support also, so people using PBA in large production environments would be able to blast disk images to more than one machine over the network.

That's all for now. I have to attend to my Dapper Drake install.

Canned OS on a Stick! Boot Slax Linux from USB Flash Drive.

2006-10-28T16:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a walk-through for how you can boot Slax Linux from your USB stick. For these instructions, I will assume that you have Windows since that's the market-dominant OS. When you're done, you'll have a USB flash drive that has Linux, KDE, and Firefox. Plus, you can still use the USB flash drive to store files like you normally would because the USB flash drive is formatted with the FAT32 filesystem.

For this to all work, you'll need a USB flash drive that's at least 256MB. The bigger, the better. Your computer must also be able to boot from USB hard disk. Usually, there is a BIOS setting that you need to enable.

Now, you need to download the stuff that you need. First, download the Slax Standard Edition ISO from the Slax website. While you're there, also download the Mozilla Firefox 2.0 module. For the adventurous, you can try doing this with the other Slax editions also.

After you download the ISO image, burn it onto a CD. Alternatively, you can mount the iso with a virtual cd program such as Daemon Tools, Virtual CD, Winimage or some other equivalent. You just need to be able to copy the files off of the CD.

Next, create a folder on your Windows computer. For this example, I will create a folder named
c:\slaxusb. We'll call this the remaster directory.

Then, copy all of the files on the CD to your remaster directory. Copy the Mozilla Firefox 2.0 module to the modules folder in your remaster directory. In my example, that would be the c:\slaxusb\modules directory. When you're done it will look sort of like this. Now edit the syslinux.cfg file that's located in the tools\WIN subdirectory in your remaster subdirectory. For me, that's the C:\slaxusb\tools\WIN directory. Find the line that starts with "append". It's probably the last line. Add autoexec=xconf;startx to the end of this line. This will make the USB stick automatically boot into KDE.

Go to My Computer, right-click on the removable disk icon for your USB Flash Drive, and select Format. Now format your USB flash drive with FAT32 filesystem. Note the drive letter of your USB flash drive.

After the drive is formatted, open up a command prompt, switch to your remaster directory, and run make_disk.bat followed by the drive letter of your USB flash drive. Here are the command prompt commands to run:

cd c:\slaxusb
make_disk g:

Remember to use substitute g: with the drive letter for your USB Flash drive. When the script finishes executing, you'll see a screen that looks like this.

That's it! You're done. Now you have a USB flash drive that can boot Linux. Just insert your USB Flash drive in a USB port, configure your computer to boot from USB, and power on your computer.

Download Debian VM

2006-10-11T22:47:00.000-07:00

I found a Debian Etch VM here. This VM is documented very well, and it's only 391MB.

I now have downloads posted for most of Distrowatch.com's Top 10. The only one left is Slackware. I'm currently working a Slackware 11 VM to distribute, but it's a complete install, so it's going to be a really huge download. I suppose I could trim it down a little if I have time.

Download Knoppix VM

2006-10-04T00:45:00.000-07:00

Knoppix is a live CD distro that tries to cram as much as it can into a CD.

I found a link to a Knoppix 5.01 Vmware VM. The VM just boots from the iso image. It's similar to how the DSL Vmware VM works.

Go here to find out more.

Grandma's LAMP. It's easy enough for Grandma!

2006-10-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

A VMware LAMP Appliance that even your Grandma can use!

Version: 1.0.0
MD5SUM: c6ebd6c649f0d8ee9d9e39522957b705
Operating System: Xubuntu 6.06.1 LTS
Size: 337MB
username: vmware
password: vmware

Download: torrent

Discuss Grandma's LAMP, Get Help, and Share Ideas on the Discussion Forums.

My friend tried other LAMP Appliances, and they were all very complicated to use, so I decided to make something that he could use, that I could use, and that my Grandma could use.

Everything is described in plain english on a web page that automatically loads when you power on the VM. Grandma's LAMP includes a development environment with the following: L- Linux, A- Apache, M- MySQL, P- PHP. Grandma's LAMP also includes extras such as phpmyadmin, Samba, and SSL. Here's a screenshot:

Somebody else's PCLinuxOS Big Daddy VM

2006-09-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

I was browsing the VMware site today, and I found a link to a customized PCLinuxOS Big Daddy VM that someone else created. Click here to check it out.

Download PCLinuxOS 0.93a Big Daddy

2006-09-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

PCLinuxOS 0.93a Big Daddy VMware VM
Current Version: 1.0.0
Release Date: 9/21/06
MD5SUM: 18f3d02abab24e8012de9f989e14b27b

OS: PCLinuxOS
Size: 750MB
VMware Tools: Installed
login: vmware
password: vmware
root password: toor

Download: torrent

Description:
This is a VMware VM release from The Canned OS Project.
PCLinuxOS is #7 on Distrowatch.com. PCLinuxOS is based on Mandrake Linux and uses apt-get as its package manager. It's really slick! The Big Daddy Edition is for those who want lots of apps out-of-the-box from their distro.

ReactOS Virtual Machine, Windows without Windows

2006-09-18T14:09:00.000-07:00

Today, ReactOS released version 0.3 which coincides with its 10th anniversary. ReactOS is a ground-up implementation of a Windows XP compatible operating system and aims to be complete binary compatible, that is, both application and driver compatible. I never tried ReactOS before, but I found out that they distribute a VMware VM, so I downloaded it and tried it. It boots up really fast, way faster than Windows XP.

Here's a screenshot of the desktop.

ReactOS is still alpha quality, and it isn't a viable replacement for Windows yet, but nonetheless, it's a very interesting project. You can download the VM here: Direct Download

Download Damn Small VM, Distrowatch #6

2006-09-16T21:28:00.000-07:00

Damn Small Linux is #6 on Distrowatch. Damn Small aims to be the a very functional live CD while keeping its size to a mere 50MB. I like DSL a lot.

Damn Small Linux releases a VMware VM, but I think it's basically a blank VM that boots up off of their CD iso. It would have been nice if they distributed a VM that's a hard disk install. In any case, here's the Damn Small Linux VM.

Direct Download

Download Fedora Core 5 VM, Distrowatch #3

2006-09-16T21:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to a Fedora Core 5 VMware VM that I found. Somebody else made it. I haven't tried this VM yet. Let me know what you think.

Size: 976MB

See Info Page for login account and additional instructions.
Download: torrent

Download OpenSUSE VM, Distrowatch #2

2006-09-16T08:08:00.000-07:00

I found this link to an OpenSUSE VMware VM that somebody else created. OpenSUSE is currently #2 on Distrowatch.com. I haven't tried this VM myself.

OS: OpenSUSE
Size: 884MB
VMware Tools: Installed
login: opensuse
password: opensuse

Info Page
Download: torrent

Torrent Download for Personal Backup Appliance 1.0.2

2006-09-11T23:24:00.001-07:00

The Personal Backup Appliance version 1.0.2 is now also available as a torrent download.

Download: torrent

View: Release Notes

Download SimplyMEPIS 6.0 VM, Distrowatch #4

2006-09-09T22:59:00.000-07:00

SimplyMEPIS 6.0 VMware VM
Current Version: 1.0.0
Release Date: 9/9/06
MD5SUM: 2065e33cc5c106601b8307194d7c1201

OS: SimplyMEPIS 6.0
Size: 801MB
VMware Tools: Installed
login: vmware
password: vmware
root password: toor

Download: torrent

Description:
This is a VMware VM release from The Canned OS Project.
MEPIS is #4 on Distrowatch.com. SimplyMEPIS is the desktop variant of MEPIS.

Download PCLinuxOS 0.93a MiniMe VM, Distrowatch #7

2006-09-08T23:27:00.000-07:00

PCLinuxOS 0.93a MiniME VMware VM
Current Version: 1.0.0
Release Date: 9/8/06
MD5SUM: c097da4aee3e08e989106471cfec362b

OS: PCLinuxOS
Size: 343MB
VMware Tools: Installed
login: vmware
password: vmware
root password: toor

Download: torrent

Discuss this this PCLinuxOS VM, Get Help, and Share Ideas on the Discussion Forums.

Description:
This is a VMware VM release from The Canned OS Project.
PCLinuxOS is #7 on Distrowatch.com. PCLinuxOS is based on Mandrake Linux and uses apt-get as its package manager. It's really slick! The MiniMe edition is a bare desktop, so it's perfect for distribution as a VM.

Download Mandriva VM, Distrowatch #5

2006-09-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

Mandriva is #5 on the Distrowatch.com site. You can download a VMware image of Mandriva Linux 2006 directly from Mandriva. I haven't tried this VM, but I'd be interested in knowing what you think about it. Enjoy.

Size: 603MB
Download

Download Ubuntu VM, Distrowatch #1

2006-09-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

I found this link to an Ubuntu Dapper VMware VM that somebody else created. Ubuntu is currently #1 on Distrowatch.com. I haven't tried this VM myself. It's distributed as an rar file torrent download.

OS: Ubuntu 6.0.6 LTS
Size: 808MB
VMware Tools: Installed
login: ubuntu
password: ubuntu

Info Page
Download: torrent

Spreading the Linux Distrowatch Love

2006-09-07T23:52:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start maintaining a list of VMware VM downloads for the Top 10 distros listed on distrowatch.com so that I can spread the linux love. It's sort of like a one stop shop for downloading the most popular linux distros to try out. If there's an existing VM download, I will link to it. If there isn't an existing VM download, I will create one myself and set up a bittorrent download.

Xubuntu 6.06.1 LTS VMware Virtual Appliance

2006-08-30T00:11:00.000-07:00

(UPDATE: Xubuntu VM has been updated to 1.0.2)

Current Version: 1.0.1
Release Date: 8/30/06

OS: Xubuntu 6.06.1 LTS
Size: 471MB
VMware Tools: Installed
login: vmware
password: vmware

Download: torrent

Description:
Xubuntu is a complete GNU/Linux based system with an Ubuntu base. It's lighter, and more efficient than Ubuntu with GNOME or KDE, since it uses the Xfce Desktop environment, which makes it ideal for old or low-end machines, as well as thin-client networks.

Hard Disk Backup and Restore using PBA

2006-08-29T22:24:00.000-07:00

Hard Disk Backup and Restore Walk-through using the Personal Backup Appliance

[ There's a newer version of this guide ]

Download PBA at: http://pba-vm.sourceforge.net

Discuss PBA, Get Help, and Share Ideas on the Discussion Forums

This is a guide to using the Personal Backup Appliance to backup and restore your hard disk. The Personal Backup Appliance is an open source alternative to Ghost server. The Personal Backup Appliance, or PBA for short, is distributed as a VMware Virtual Appliance. To get started, go to the link above, download the latest release, unzip it, and power it on using VMware Player, a free download from http://www.vmware.com/download/player/
When you first power on the VM, Ubuntu Linux will boot up and automatically launch Firefox with the main information page.
At this point, everything is setup and ready to go on the server-end. The next step is to set things up on the client-end. Please take note of the IP address that's displayed on your VM. It will most likely differ from the IP address in the screenshot. Please also take note of your VM's url.

From another system on the network, go to the PBA VM's web page, download the PBA client CD iso image from the VM, and burn it onto a CD.
Once you have the client CD, boot it on a computer or VM on your network. To boot from CD, you may need to change the boot order in your BIOS to boot from cdrom before the hard disk. After the client CD boots, you will be greeted with a prompt asking for the IP address of your Personal Backup Appliance.
Type the IP address and press [ENTER].
Next, you will presented with a simple menu. Use the arrow keys to navigate and Press Enter to select. Select Backup.
At the Backup Filename: prompt, enter in a POSIX compliant filename. If it isn't compliant, just try again.

When backing up, you will either see a partition image, ntfsclone, or dd progress screen.

When the Backup operation is complete, you will see this screen.
If you select the Restore option from the main menu, you will be presented with a menu to choose the archive that you want to restore.
Choose the archive that you want to restore.

During the restore operation, you will see either see a partition image, ntfsclone, or dd progress screen.

When the Restore operation is completed, you will see this screen.
Select Quit and power off the system.

P2V - Virtualizing an existing OS install using PBA

2006-08-29T22:05:00.000-07:00

The Personal Backup Appliance VM can be used to move an existing OS install on real hardware to a VM. The process is popularly called "P2V." "P2V" stands for "Physical to Virtual."

If the physical OS install is Linux, all you need to do is backup the OS install onto the PBA VM, create a new VM and then restore the backup into the new VM. You need to make sure you create a VM with the right storage device, either IDE or SCSI, depending on the configuration of your physical OS install.

If you try the same thing with Windows 2000 or Windows XP, things won't go quite as smoothly. In fact, you will get a scary blue screen.

The blue screen occurs because the VMware scsi drivers are not installed. This is a problem that occurs if you use any off-the-shelf disk copying program (e.g. Ghost, etc.) to dupe a real hard disk to a virtual one. The problem isn't limited to PBA.

To make the blue screen go away, you need to inject the scsi drivers and registry changes into the OS install without booting it up. There are several options, that I know of, for doing this.

VMware has a product called Virtual Machine Importer that's in Beta and can be downloaded. It didn't work for me.
VMware has a commercial product called P2V. I didn't try P2V.
There's a free plugin to BartPE Boot CD called Ultimate-P2V. Using Ultimate-P2V to virtualize a windows XP installation worked like a charm. Follow the instructions on this page and build it: http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?page_id=174

Once you have a working BartPE Boot CD with Ultimate-P2V, you can use the Personal Backup Appliance to virtualize your OS install. You can download the Personal Backup Appliance here: http://pba-vm.sourceforge.net

First, power on the Personal Backup Appliance VM. Let it boot to the Ubuntu desktop.

Next, from the physical system:

Boot from the PBA client CD on the computer that you want to virtualize.
At the main menu, select Backup Disk, and enter a filename.
When backup is complete. Power off the system.

Now, we need to create our VM.

Create a new VM with a SCSI vmdk hard disk. Choose Buslogic.
Configure the VM to boot from the PBA client CD iso, then power on the VM.
At the main menu, select Restore Disk and choose the archive that you just created.
When restore is complete. Reboot the VM.
The VM will blue screen when attempting to boot up. This is expected.
Power off the VM.
Configure the VM to boot from your BartPE Boot CD with Ultimate-P2V.
After BartPE boots up, follow the instructions from the Ultimate-P2V site to inject both the Buslogic and LSIlogic drivers.
Shutdown the VM, and let it boot from the hard disk.

If everything went as expected, your desktop from your physical computer should be booting in a VM.

Help Me Test PBA 1.0.2-RC5

2006-08-25T00:33:00.000-07:00

One more release candidate before the final 1.0.2 release. Please help me test if you can.

Here's a download link for the patch that you can use to upgrade your PBA VM to 1.0.2-RC5.

Please see my previous posts or the included readme.txt file for instructions on how to do this. This testing update is only a 2MB download.

There are 3 main changes in RC5

- use dd & lzop instead of zsplit for raw partition backup (faster). restore of zsplit archives is still supported.
- fixed restore menu bug when there are no archives to display
- display time elapsed after backup and restore

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pba-vm/pba-1.0.2-rc5.zip?download

PBA 1.0.2 - Release Candidate #4

2006-08-15T01:02:00.000-07:00

Another release candidate for PBA 1.0.2, release candidate #4. 1.0.2 will be released on 9/1.
The procedure to patch your 1.0.1 installation to 1.0.2-RC4 is the same as with previous release candidates and is described in the readme.txt file in the zip.

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pba-vm/pba-1.0.2-rc4.zip?download

In addition to all the changes/fixes from previous release candidates, 1.0.2-RC4 fixes the following:

1. Fixed some potential bootup problems when restoring to a blank hard disk. Some users reported bootup issues when restoring to a blank, zeroed-out hard disk. I believe this issue was due to the undocumented use of the area between the MBR and the start of the first partition. The bootup problem on my notebook went away after I made a change to backup and restore this region. I also hope that this will do away with the need to run fixmbr from the Windows recovery console in scenarios where it was required.

2. added swap file label for centos (mkswap -L)

Please help me test. there will likely be an RC5 in about a week to address other issues, and after that I guess I should refrain from doing anything major to allow for enough time to test before 1.0.2 is cut on 9/1.

Help me test PBA 1.0.2-Release Candidate #3

2006-08-09T23:45:00.000-07:00

I didn't intend to do another release candidate so quickly, but I spent a bunch of time on PBA over the last couple of days and overhauled the user interface on the client end, and fixed a few corner case bugs.

Screenshots of new interface:
http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?group_id=171414

Here's a download link for the patch to v1.0.2 Release Candidate #3.

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pba-vm/pba-1.0.2-rc3.zip?download

The procedure is the same as with RC2 and is documented in the readme.txt file in the zip file.

Enjoy.

Personal Backup Appliance 1.0.2-Release Candidate #2

2006-08-07T22:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, let's try something new.

I'm getting ready to release 1.0.2 on 9/1, but I'd like to iron out as many bugs as I can, so here's a release candidate so that you can help me test. The files are released as a patch to your existing 1.0.1 PBA VM. It's only about 2MB. The readme.txt file in the zip archive has instructions on how to patch your existing 1.0.1 VM to 1.0.2-RC2. You can download pba-1.0.2-rc2.zip directly from the VM, or you can transfer the file manually by FTP or via the windows shares.

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pba-vm/pba-1.0.2-rc2.zip?download

Send feedback, comments, bug reports to rxhui@users.sourceforge.net

List of Changes in 1.0.2-RC2
- fixed duplicate entries when there's more than one partition
- fixed Grub boot error by adding fixgrub Grub re-install script
- moved some startup files to /etc/rc.local
- no need to run 'sudo /home/vmware/bin/data.sh' for hdd upgrade
- add warning if drive does not match original
- few modifications to improve backing up and restoring of BSD filesystems

Personal Backup Appliance 1.0.1 Issues

2006-08-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

With the release of PBA 1.0.1 , the filesystem support has improved a lot. Most notably, there is better NTFS support and support for LVM. But I after some more exhaustive testing, I found some issues. These issues do not break the core functionality of PBA, but they sure annoy me.

1. Windows backups and restores work great, but linux backups and restores on drives with Grub don't do so well. I believe this problem was present in version 1.0.0 also. I already have this fixed in my sandbox, so the next release will have it. See my previous post for a work-around that you can use in the meantime.
2. It appears that you will have additional menu entries for the same item if your drive has more than one partition. While this doesn't break functionality, it is not pretty. This blatant bug in the script will be fixed in the next release also.

Rather than roll out a release right away, I'm compiling a list of other issues to fix before I release 1.0.2 on 9/1. Let me know if you're seeing problems not listed here.

Grub may be broken after PBA restore

2006-07-31T21:30:00.000-07:00

Windows backups and restores seem to be working well, but Linux restores may not boot up if the boot loader is Grub for reasons that I do not understand yet. Lilo does not appear to be affected. The error you will see is Grub getting stuck on boot. Only "Grub__" will be displayed. The good news is that with version 1.0.1 of the client, you can make your disk bootable by re-installing Grub. Here's how.

After the restore completes, quit out of the PBA client to the console. If you already restored your hard disk, you can boot up the PBA client again, and exit the client to the console. For these instructions, I will assume that your only linux is /dev/hda1 and you do not have a separate partition for /boot. If you have a separate partition /boot, mount it instead of the partition mounted to /.

Run these commands:

# mkdir /root/tmpmnt
# mount /dev/hda1 /root/tmpmnt
# grub-install --root-directory=/root/tmpmnt /dev/hda
# umount /root/tmpmnt

Reboot the system, and eject the PBA client CD to boot from your hard disk.

I will do this automatically in the next release of PBA.

Personal Backup (VMware) Appliance v1.0.1 Released!

2006-07-30T00:27:00.000-07:00

Version 1.0.1 of the Personal Backup Appliance has been released and is available for download!

Here's a list of changes:

ntfsclone is used for NTFS partitions.
partimage is used for partimage supported partitions except for NTFS
Device Image is used for partitions not supported by ntfsclone or partimage
added lzop compression for ntfsclone backups. faster than gzip.
removed a bunch of unnecessary packages to reduce VM size
PBA Client CD (pba-client-1.0.1.iso) is now based on INSERT Linux.
removed 'dsl-2-4' backup that was included in the 1.0.0 release
if more that one hard disk is found, user will be asked to choose one.
miscellaneous bug fixes

Personal Backup (VMware) Appliance v1.0.1
http://pba-vm.sourceforge.net

login: vmware
password: vmware
OS: Ubuntu 5.10
Size: ~300MB
License: GPL
VMware Tools Installed: Yes

DOWNLOAD: torrent
MD5SUM: 6dfafecae461b7a25067b6d456217ccb

Description:
The Personal Backup Appliance is a VMware virtual appliance that provides -TWO- crucial backup functions: (1) Hard Disk Backup, Clone & Restore (2) Simple NAS services.

Xubuntu 6.06 LTS VMware Virtual Appliance

2006-07-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

Current Version: 1.0.0
Release Date: 7/13/06

OS: Xubuntu 6.06 LTS
Size: 464MB
VMware Tools: Installed
login: vmware
password: vmware
Download: torrent

Description:
Xubuntu is a complete GNU/Linux based system with an Ubuntu base. It's lighter, and more efficient than Ubuntu with GNOME or KDE, since it uses the Xfce Desktop environment, which makes it ideal for old or low-end machines, as well as thin-client networks.