- Introduction
- Description
- Supported filesystems
- Software required
- Building
- Supported platforms
- Terms of distribution
- Using doclone
- Local use
- Network use
- Unicast/Multicast
- Chain mode
- Command line options
- After using doclone
- The boot sector
- The partitions
- Author
Copyright (C) 2013, 2015 Joan Lledó. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this text under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can read the entire license following this link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Doclone is a free project developed in C++ for creating and restoring backups of disks and partitions. It is also possible to work on LAN, by transferring images or device data between nodes.
Doclone uses libblkid for detecting the filesystems, and some external tools for formatting them. FS labels and uuid's are managed by libparted.
Here is a list of supported file systems, and the required tools for formatting or mounting them.
| Filesystem | Needed software |
|---|---|
| ext2 | mke2fs |
| ext3 | mke2fs |
| ext4 | mke2fs |
| fat16 | mkdosfs |
| fat32 | mkdosfs |
| hfs | mkfs.hfs |
| hfs+ | mkfs.hfsplus |
| jfs | jfs_mkfs |
| linux-swap | mkswap |
| ntfs | mkntfs |
| reiserfs | mkreiserfs |
| xfs | mkfs.xfs |
It is necessary to have the library libparted 3.2 or later installed. The libraries libe2fs, libuuid, libblkid, libarchive, libxerces-c and liblog4cpp are also required.
As usual, to compile doclone you only need to execute the classic commands:
./configure
make
And if you wish to install it on your system, execute as root:
make install
Before compiling, you must have the folowwing development libraries:
- libparted-dev
- e2fslibs-dev
- uuid-dev
- libblkid-dev
- libarchive-dev
- libxerces-c-dev
- liblog4cpp-dev
Currently, doclone has been compiled only in GNU/Linux
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Local use of doclone is limited to create images of a disk or partition, or restore images created previously on a disk or partition.
Doclone allows you to work on LAN. By this way, you can restore images created in another computer. For this purpose, it is possible to work in two modes, the Unicast/Multicast and the Chain Mode.
In this mode, there is one server and one or more clients. The server must run before and wait for the clients. Then, the clients can connect with the server, who sends them its data.
This mode creates a chain of computers where every node send the data to the next one in the chain. In this mode, the clients must run before and the server sends a broadcast package to know who is listening. Then, it sorts the chain and sends to each client the IP address of the next one.
Here is more thoroughly detailed how to use doclone.
Synopsis:
doclone FUNCTION [ -d, --device DEVICE ] [ -f, --file FILE ]
[ -a, --address SERVER-IP-ADDRESS ] [ -n, --nodes NUMBER ]
[ -i, --interface IP-OF-WORKING-INTERFACE]
[ -e, --empty ] [ -F, --force]
-d, --device The device you are going to use.
Examples: "/dev/sda", "/dev/sdb2"
-f, --file The file you are going to create or read.
Example: "~/backups/hda.doclone"
-a, --address IP address you are going to contact to.
Example: "192.168.1.3"
-n, --nodes The number of receivers in multicast mode.
-i, --interface The network interface for network modes.
-e, --empty Saves in the image only the partition table, with no data.
It can be used both locally and on LAN.
Example:
doclone -cd /dev/sda -f ~/sda-empty.doclone -e
-F, --force Restores the image even if the datat doesn't fit in the target
device.
It can be used both locally and on LAN.
It only has effect if you are restoring an image.
Example:
doclone -rd /dev/sda -f ~/sda.doclone -F
For local usage: All of these options must be used with -d and -f. In all cases the order of the parameters is irrelevant.
-c, --create Create an image of a disk or partition.
Examples:
doclone -cd /dev/sda -f ~/backups/sda.doclone
doclone -cd /dev/sda2 -f ~/backups/sda2.doclone
-r, --restore Restore an image to a disk or partition.
Examples:
doclone -rf ~/backups/sda.doclone -d /dev/sda
doclone -rf ~/backups/sda2.doclone -d /dev/sda2
All the network options need the use of -f or -d. Depending on whether what you want to send or receive is an image or a device.
Unicast/Multicast:
-S, --send Send the data (the option involves -n)
Example:
doclone -Sd /dev/sda -n 1
Send the contents of /dev/sda to one receiver.
If the -n option is not specified, the number of receivers
is set to 1 by default
-C, --receive Receive the data of the server
Example:
doclone -Rd /dev/sda -a 192.168.1.150
Receive information from 192.168.1.150 and save it in
/dev/sda.
Example:
doclone -Rf ~/backups/sda.doclone
Receive information from 192.168.1.150 and save it in
~/backups/sda.doclone
(By this way you can create remote images).
-s, --link-send Send the data to the network.
Example:
doclone -sd /dev/sda
Send the data of /dev/sda to the chain.
-l, --link-receive Receive the data from the network
Example:
doclone -ld /dev/sda
Receive the data from the chain and restores it in /dev/sda
Example:
doclone -lf ~/backups/sda.doclone
Receive the data from the chain and save it in in an image
file.
When you decide to create an image of an entire hard disk, the boot sector is also saved. This means if you have the GRUB bootloader installed, it will be cloned as well as all of its options. If the origin machine has no GRUB, the first 446 bytes of the disk will be copied.
It is possible to create an image of a 40GB hard disk in the server, to restore it in a 20GB hard disk (for example). Since the program only saves your files in the image, if your files only take 10GB, the image will be restored without problems.
Additionally, the partitions size is resized to be proportional to the size they occupied in the original drive, so if you have a partition that takes the 70% of a 40GB disk, on the destination the partition will take the 70% of the 20GB disk, provided your files fit in that space. Otherwise, doclone will return an error. If the original disk is smaller than the destination, the partition size is increased proportionally in the destination.
doclone has been written by Joan Lledó jlledom@member.fsf.org