1

Hi I have about 15 workstations, all have the same hardware specs so I figured clonezilla is perfect for cloning them. So I followed everything this guide says :cloning groups of school computers

That guide above makes it all look easy but when I tried setting up Clonezilla Server Edition on my laptop (Kubuntu 10.10) and configured the master computer for PXE boot, the master computer could not see the Clonezilla server. It just shows 'DHCP...' which seems it trying to grab an IP address but to no avail.

Please help.

Thanks!

3
  • How are your computer networked? Can the computer model boot from the network card?
    – Steve
    Jan 19, 2011 at 5:26
  • yes it can do PXE boot. I ditched Clonezilla and used FOG instead.. worked like a charm .
    – r2b2
    Jan 19, 2011 at 6:37
  • Maybe you just didn't have a working DHCP server. It's hard to tell with so little information.
    – mivk
    Dec 13, 2012 at 17:41

1 Answer 1

1

Trouble shooting is par for the course. At this point, start with the laptop. Can you get that laptop to connect to the internet? Configure this laptop with all static network configurations. Static IP, Subnet, Gateway. Make sure you can get this thing on the network. Connect the laptop into a switch, plug one computer that you want to clone into that switch and set it to boot via PXE. If you know the linux laptop can connect to the network and you know that the other computer can PXE boot, and you've got them on their own switch where no other DHCP server or firewall can interfere, then you move on to troubleshooting your clonezilla DHCP setup. The easiest way that Clonezilla can be set to configure its server is to do the default values settings with: sudo /opt/drbl/sbin/drbl4imp

Anytime you have to "reset" the clonezilla sytem, try that command line to get you back to a known good state.

If you can't ever seem to get the chosen computer to PXE boot and talk to the clonezilla server, can you get some OTHER brand of computer with a DIFFERENT brand of network card to connect to the clonezilla server?

Just troubleshoot piece by by piece, Can I get the clonezilla server on the network? Put the computers on an independent switch with no other devices to eliminate switch and port blocking issues, then can I find one machine that is known to be able to PXE boot? Get a clear clean path of communication from server to switch to host computer. Are those cables good? Go back and reset the clonezilla server if needed. You CAN get it to work.

Don't get too frustrated by the fact that it won't work out of the box, expect a bit of fighting, and expect to win too.

Good luck.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .