Image Format
Version 2 (Nikos Skalkotos, 10/21/2011 12:29 pm)
1 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | h1. Image Format |
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2 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | |
3 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | Right now we support 2 image formats: extdump and ntfsdump. Those formats are raw copies (using dd) of partitions hosting ext{2,3,4} and ntfs filesystems respectively. |
4 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | |
5 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | Partitions hosting a windows or linux system that are suitable for dumping should have the following properties: |
6 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | * Be the first partition in the filesystem |
7 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | * Start at sector 2048 |
8 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | * Have a bootloader installed in the partition |
9 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | |
10 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | h2. Known Issues |
11 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | |
12 | 2 | Nikos Skalkotos | * For linux systems, having grub installed in the partition is fragile and things can go wrong when resizing the partitions, especially when shrinking. |
13 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | * Swap space is not supported. |
14 | 2 | Nikos Skalkotos | * More complicated partition schemes are not supported. |
15 | 2 | Nikos Skalkotos | * We only support linux and windows images |
16 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | |
17 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | h2. Future Work |
18 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | |
19 | 1 | Nikos Skalkotos | We are considering changing the {ext,ntfs}dump format in order to overcome the known issues. |
20 | 2 | Nikos Skalkotos | |
21 | 2 | Nikos Skalkotos | * To overcame the grub problem, the initial thought was to extend extdump to contain the first 2048 sectors. |
22 | 2 | Nikos Skalkotos | * To support more complicated partition schemes, we could include an additional file that has rules on how the image should be deployed. |