Episode: 3463
Title: HPR3463: Clonezilla: A backup story
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3463/hpr3463.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 23:58:41

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3463 for Wednesday, the 10th of November 2021.
Today's show is entitled, Clone Zola, A Backup Story.
It is hosted by Ro-N and is about 34 minutes long and carries a clean flag.
The summary is Ro-N, walks through the process of backing up, his laptop with Clone Zola.
Hi, welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Today I'm going to be talking about Clone Zola.
I'm going to be using it to help back up my laptop when I go to restore the operating system.
To sort of give a brief synopsis of what Clone Zola is, I will read from their opening page on Clone Zola.org.
What is Clone Zola?
Clone Zola is a partition and disk imaging cloning program similar to True Image or Norton Ghost.
It helps you do system deployment, bare metal backup, and recovery.
Three types of Clone Zola are available.
Clone Zola Live, Clone Zola Light Server, and Clone Zola SE Server Edition.
Clone Zola Live is suitable for single machine backup and restore.
While Clone Zola Light Server or SE is for massive deployment and can clone many 40-plus computer simultaneously,
Clone Zola saves and restores only use blocks in the hard disk.
This increases the clone efficiency with some high-end hardware and a 42-no cluster,
a multicast for storing at a rate of 8 gigabits per minute was reported.
So I will be using the Clone Zola Live today to make images of my hard disk.
I actually have a two-hard disk in my computer laptop.
It's 2 SSD drives.
I had purchased about three years ago, I think, three or four years ago now,
a 17-inch laptop from System76.
It's the Q2 model, which is one of the white box models.
This is before I think they were actually making their own, producing their own laptops.
So it doesn't, it's not like open firmware all the way up through the OS and everything.
I think they've replaced as much of the firmware blobs as they can with open source.
But I think it still contains a number of proprietary blobs in it,
and it's not using the open, I don't think it's using the open firmware to actually boot up.
It is an EUFI system though.
I'm not sure what happened.
I recently was updating and I kept getting errors that it couldn't finish doing a kernel update.
I kept running into errors.
And I thought maybe this was because I had downloaded and compiled some software.
It was to run to run Roblox.
My girls are into Roblox and they want to be to play with them.
So I was seeing if I could get that going.
And I'm not sure that's what caused it.
For whatever reason, I ran into issues updating the kernel with just the standard.
Their pop OS store, which is their sort of synaptic install your software software.
And it just wouldn't install.
I kept running into errors.
And in the process of trying to get it fixed,
I think I basically desystem 76, my operating system to a degree.
Like a lot of things just aren't working now.
So I figured I think this has always been a little funky because I think this came with 1804.
Ubuntu when I first got it.
And then I switched to pop OS.
And I know pop OS is now not using grub for the boot loader.
But it was still using, I'm just not sure what it is.
So I figured it's time to just sort of make a backup.
And then reinstall the operating system.
Even though I'm doing the backup, I do.
My second drive is actually my home drive.
So hopefully that won't be an issue.
But I'm going to make a backup just in case I accidentally flew out.
And I don't lose all my information.
So anyway, this episode with the preamble out of the way is going to sort of recording me
using walking through the steps of the clenzyl alive and getting my hard drive backed up to my external hard drive.
Okay, so I've already downloaded clenzyl and flashed it to a USB stick.
They have nice instructions for how to do that.
I use Unit booting to actually burn the ISO onto a disk.
But you can also just format the disk.
And they have a tar or GC file that you can just unzip onto a flash drive if you want to use that method.
The one nice thing about the system 76 is it's very easy to get into the boot menu.
You just hit the power on and then hold the F7 key.
And then you will get the grub boot menu or whatever the boot menu is.
I don't know if it's grub at this point or not.
I think it's the UEFI boot menu actually.
Except there we go.
And then I just key down to UEFI San Dispartition 1.
And now I'm at clenzyl alive.
The clenzyl boot menu actually, I think this is using grub.
It gives you a number of options.
There's clenzyl alive VGA 800 by 600.
Clenzyl alive VGA 800 and 2 RAM.
I guess that means put it into RAM.
The whole thing.
There's clenzyl alive VGA with large bond and 2 RAM.
This is the one I'm actually going to pick.
I did the 800 by 600.
I think that keeps, oops.
I lost my boot menu.
Maybe not.
I think it's about the boot because I didn't pick something soon enough.
What's going on?
Yes, I think it's booting into the 800 by 600 because that's what I had it on.
Well, I can do that.
It's just have to look a little closer at the screen.
It puts you into an incursors GUI menu.
So now I'm selecting English from my language.
Having to hit OK.
Keyboard layout.
I'm going to keep the default keyboard layout from the US.
Now you see, let's jump to another menu.
Start clenzyl in the clenzyla or enter login shell.
I'm going to start clenzyla.
Now you get the licensing menu.
And then the hand from now on,
if multiple choices are available,
you have to press space key to mark your selection.
An asterisk will be shown when the selection is done.
Two modes are available.
You can clone slash restore disk or partition using an image
to disk or partition to partition clone slash restore.
Besides, clenzyl like server and client modes are also available.
You can use them for massive deployment.
Select mode.
I'm going to use the images because that's what I'm used to using.
So it's device image work with disk or partition using images.
OK.
Before cloning you have to assign where clenzyl image will be saved to or read from.
We'll mount that device or remote resource at home part image.
The clenzyla image will be saved to or read from the home part image.
Select mode.
So you have local dev use local device.
SSH server.
Samba server.
NFS server.
Web dev server.
S3 server.
Enter shell.
Ram disk.
Use memory.
OK.
Or BT or from rod device.
Skip.
So I'm going to use local dev.
If you want to use USB device as clenzyla image repository, please insert USB device into the machine now.
Wait about five seconds.
Press enter key so that the OS can detect the USB device and later we can mount it.
So that is what I'm going to do.
Wait about five seconds.
Looking at the timer on my recording.
It looks like about five seconds.
So I'm going to hit enter.
I think it will.
Now I've got a blank screen as it's thinking.
Oh.
Now I say let's see.
OK.
What's going on?
You can insert storage device into now if you want.
Use that.
Then wait for it to be detected.
Update periodically.
Visit petition.
USB DC.
Backup hub.
Seagate.
Yes.
OK.
So it looks like it's seeing it.
Control C to exit this window.
OK.
So I'm going to hit Control C.
And what's going on?
Screen is terminating.
Founding local dev home partition.
Excluding.
Excluding busy partition or disk.
Excluding.
Finding partitions.
Partition number six.
Dev SDA.
Getting information on the different.
What's going on?
OK.
So it's gone through.
It's found all looks like all the hard drives and the partitions on the hard drives that are in my machine.
So I have my SDA drive, which is my main drive that has the various.
Linux and boot partitions on it.
It's got SDB.
What the one partition, which is my home drive.
It's a gigabyte or a carabyte drive.
And then it's found.
OK.
That's right.
Because I had to mute.
In a different episode, you'll hear about my trials trying to boot off of this drive on a Mac mini, which hasn't gone well.
Which is another story that hopefully will be in a HBR episode soon.
So it's already partitioned.
So I'm going to pick the second partition on the.
C drive, which is this external USB C gate drive I have.
The first partition is just the boot partition that I created.
So let's pick that.
OK.
Choose if you want to check and repair the file system before mounting the image repository.
This is only for certain file system.
I'm going to try to support it by FSCK.
I'm going to get new Linux.
Like EXT, 234.
Riser FS, XFS.
Not NTFS, HFS plus.
This is for mounting local storage device as an image repository.
Skip checking, repairing.
I think I can skip it.
It should be fine.
Yeah, let's skip that.
All right.
Which directory is for the clonezilla image repository?
If there's base and a directory, it will not be shown.
When the current selected surname is what you want to use tab key to choose from done.
No, you should not choose directory tagged with CZ image.
They are just for you to know.
Current directory path.
Current selected surname is root.
Exit directory browsing.
So I've root and...
...and loss and down.
Nice subter...
Oh.
That's about browse.
Open source.
Let's do it again.
I guess I'm just going to put this in root for now.
That shouldn't matter.
Tab, I guess, done.
Can't remember if I'd reformatted this.
There might actually be a Geeks SD operating system on this.
That's the way on where the images are.
Let's see.
Running mount bind.
That says bind dash here in no time.
Okay.
So it's mounting part to the home part image.
SDC, XT4 size.
915.7 gigabytes.
Use 76 megs.
Available later in 96.
There's plenty of space.
All right.
Choose mode to run the following wizard about advanced parameters.
We have beginner expert and exit.
I am going to do beginner.
Okay.
Let's see.
The software will overwrite the data on your hard drive when restoring.
It's recommended to backup importantly.
Okay.
We're not restoring.
On the mount, multiple choices.
Save local disk.
Save part.
Save local partition as an image.
Save local disk as an image.
Sorry.
It might.
Okay.
I think we're saving local disk.
That's what I want the whole disk.
Okay.
Image.
SDA.
All right.
I think it's letting me pick.
The name of the image for the disk that I want.
I'm hoping it's going to let me pick with disk I want to image.
Okay.
Excluding.
Excluding.
Yes.
Okay.
Choose local disk as source.
This name is the device name in New Linux.
The first disk in the system is HDA or SDA.
It's like a disk.
HDB or SDB.
Multiple choices are available.
Press Space key to mark your selection.
Nostrics will be shown when the selection is done.
Okay.
So I guess I'm going to...
I guess you could do this.
Can you do this?
Let's see if I pick that.
I can't do them both at the same time.
Uh...
Yes.
I think I'll do that.
It's going to make the name I picked.
Let me see.
Maybe I can go back and change it.
Shift tab.
I hit cancel.
You have chosen to choose a device.
Do you want to do it again?
Yes.
All right.
Well.
For time's sake...
I don't feel like going through this whole process again.
I'll just have to rename the image later.
Because I was thinking I was going to do...
Like I do the A drive and make an image back up.
And then do the B drive.
But I think now that I'm here,
I'm just going to...
I think it'll make two images.
All right.
Let's just end decision.
That's the one thing about live podcast.
They're very exciting like this.
All right.
I'm just going to go to the FDA and see how that goes.
Hit OK.
Enter.
Choose a compression option.
If you have no idea,
keep the default value and do not change anything.
ZIP.
Use.
Parallel GZIP compression for multi-core CPU.
Dash Z9P.
ZStd and T compression very fast.
And small image like GZIP for multi-core CPU.
I'm so tempted.
Do I know what I'm really doing?
ZIP is standard.
But I like very fast and small image like GZIP.
And I think I have a multi-core CPU.
So I'm going to go with that.
Live on the edge, I guess.
Although I guess we're back up.
This may not be the best thing,
but it should be fine.
It's all Linux all the way down.
Choose if you want to check and repair the file system
before this option is for certain.
Yeah, we'll just skip that.
After I'm just saved,
do you want to check if the image is restoreable?
Yes, I do want to check that the image is restoreable.
Tab.
OK.
Do you want to encrypt the image?
If yes, he could pull.
No, I don't need to do that now.
I do when I do the install of the new OS.
I am going to encrypt it.
But this is for the backup purposes.
I don't need to do that right now.
Set not to.
OK.
The action to perform when everything is finished.
Choose reboot shutdown.
Everything.
It's set.
I guess I'll hit choose.
OK.
There's choose.
Enter a line command prompt reboot or shutdown.
I'm just going to pick choose.
So give me an option.
OK.
Next time you can run this command directly.
It gives you a long command.
So you can run it from the command line directly to create this image.
It's also saved as a file name.
Hit enter to continue.
OK.
Activating the partition and proc.
Done.
Select the device.
FDA found.
Select the device.
FDA searching for data swap or extended partitions.
Excluding.
Busy part.
Excluding Linux rave member partition.
Unmounted partitions.
Selected the device.
Selecting all the different FDA one.
FDA two.
FDA three.
The following step is to save the hardest partitions on this machine as an image.
Machine Kudu.
FDA and it gives the name.
Yeah.
FDA one.
FDA two.
FDA three.
Home part image.
FDA are you sure you want to continue?
Yes.
Enter.
OK.
All right.
So we're in through a thing.
And now I'm at part, it says part clone.
And it's basically a progress screen.
I guess it just, it did the first partition pretty quickly because it's not really big.
It was just a boot partition.
Now it's working on.
I don't know which.
What's it doing?
Part.
FDA two.
Reading super block.
Calculating bitmap.
Please wait.
Done.
File system.
Fat 32.
Device size 4.3 gigabyte.
Space use 2.9 gigabytes.
Free space 1.4.
It's about done backing that up.
So it says it's a data block progress 100%.
Total block process 100%.
So clone successfully.
So now I think we're about, yep.
Now we've jumped to FDA three, which is the main partition.
Device size 110.9 gigabytes.
Space use 33.2 gigabytes.
Free space 77.7 gigabytes.
Let's see.
Just remaining time.
It says about five minutes.
Alrighty.
Well, I will do a pause here in the recording and come back once it's done doing the A.
I may let you listen to my voice.
Drone on about it backing up.
FDA.
RSD.
B drive.
There's only one partition.
Well, it's a terrified drive.
I think it's about half full.
So that one's probably going to take a while too.
But anyways, I'll be back in a little bit.
Thank you.
Okay.
So now it's finished making the backup of all the different partitions on the A drive
and is in the process of doing the check to make sure that they are restorable.
It zipped through the first two partitions pretty quickly.
And now we're about 35, 36 percent through the main partition.
So I'm guessing it's going to be another minute or two to get through that.
And then I will go on to make a backup of the secondary drive.
Okay, that was pretty quick.
I only took a couple minutes forward to check that second partition.
I now have a screen.
Where are we?
It says the image of this partition is restoreable.
FDA 3.
All the images of the partition are obvious in this image were checked and they are restoreable.
So that is good to know.
This gives you some information about the different disks.
Mounted bit block with snap sounds, unmounting it.
Stay in this console or under command line prompt or an exit.
When everything is done, remember to use power off reboot or follow the menu to do a normal power off reboot procedure.
Otherwise, if the boot media you are using is a readable disk, such as USB flash,
drive, and it's mounted.
Power off a reboot and I'm normal procedure.
Might make it fail to boot next time.
So I'm going to go ahead and enter.
Now I'm back to the menu where I can do things.
I am going to go back in and actually they have...
So here are the options for the menu.
Power off reboot command and to the command line prompt, which I guess had I taken a picture of that,
other than I could have modified it to just run this on the next one.
But, 3-1-1, start over.
Image repository, home partition.
If now this will be unmounted.
Re-run 2, start over, keep image repository, home part image mounted.
So you run 3, start over, remount, subter, and medium of current repository.
Device SD2.
I kind of think I want to do it number 3, because it sounds like it will remount the subter.
I think I'm going to go with 3-1-2 and just walk through the steps.
So, start cleanse is not enter command shell.
Start cleanse illa.
Local.
So I'm back to the pick the local device.
Before cloning you have to assign where cleanse illa image will be saved.
Use existing, yep, so that's what I want.
So I can skip and use existing home part image.
Before cloning you have to assign where the cleanse illa image will be.
I thought I did that.
Oh, my hit enter.
I didn't hit tab.
Well, no, we did go down to the bottom.
Sorry, I didn't see it.
So just telling you, let's see existing.
LSC skip.
Device SD2 enter.
Okay, so now we're at the...
I think we're picking...
We're back at that begin the inter...
The beginner mode menu.
Save local disk as image.
Just what I want to do.
Now I'm going to name this one dash SDB.
It okay.
Now it's I think going through to find this again.
Now I can pick which disk I want to back up.
So now I'm going down and picking SDB.
It okay.
I'm going to use the compression I did the last time.
Okay.
I can skip the checks.
Yes, check the saved image.
I do want to check the saved image.
We're not encrypting.
I think we can just power off it.
Well, let me do choose.
Just so I can read what it says afterwards.
All right, choose.
Okay.
I'll give you the command again if I wanted to run this from the command line.
Press Enter.
Getting things ready again.
Yes, I do want to save that image to there with that name.
Shooting down.
Okay, so now it's starting the clone to the vice.
I think this is where it calculates the size.
Like the it blocks used and blocks unused.
Right now we're at 40.6, 44%.
We're scrolling along.
57, 61, 65.
I may edit some of this.
78, 82, 86, 91, 95% done that.
100%.
Okay.
So now we are giving you the part clone, starting to clone the device.
DB1, file size 1.1 terabytes, spacing use 750 gigabytes, free space, 299 gigabytes.
So remaining one hour and 40 minutes before this is done backing up.
I don't think I have one hour and 40 minutes of dead air to record on my phone anyway.
I will be back in a little while.
Alright, so after about an hour and 51 minutes, it is now switched over to the process of verifying that the image is good.
Let's see, you got the vice size 1.1 terabytes, spacing use 751 gigabytes, free space, 229 gigabytes, block size, 400, 496 bytes.
It's estimating it's going to take about an hour and 10 minutes to check it.
Current rate is 10.5 gigabytes per minute and it tells you what block it's on.
Looks like things are proceeding smoothly.
I'll be back once it's finished verifying the backup.
Okay, so after about 50 minutes and a nice little nap in my hammock, it looks like it's finished successfully.
And it is checked and the image is restored.
So now it says press Enter to continue.
This takes us back to the menu to power off or reboot.
So let me reboot.
I want to, I'm going to see if I can't remember, but I think I can actually mount the images back.
I'm going to go back into my regular OS and just verify that I can see some files.
Just to make sure before I start on the process, which I think my hard drive is restoring the operating system.
So I'm waiting for it to reboot.
Oh, did it just power off?
Is it actually rebooting?
Oh, there it comes.
Alright, so now it's popped back into start screen.
Oh, let me get set up and see where we are.
So a little more time has passed than I planned.
It's now October 29th and I think my last recording was on 3rd.
And I recorded it and probably a couple weeks later till I actually started putting this all together.
But anyway, I didn't actually mount Clingzilla.
I forgot when Clingzilla because it just saves the data on the disk.
It basically creates a bunch of like four gigabytes char, something like that.
So there are tools I think that lets you go ahead and like create an image and then mount it.
But I really needed at the time to get my laptop running again.
So I just verified that I saw what looks like data on the disk.
Like as it would be saved by Clingzilla and decided that was safe enough.
I haven't yet restored.
Hopefully that will be another episode where I actually restore my 128GB USB drive back.
Put the data back on it just to double check.
But I trusted this process enough that I did reinstall my operating system.
I will say overall Clingzilla is very nice to use.
The interface is easy to grasp.
And it does what it claims to do.
So if you're in a position where you want to do a backup of a whole hard drive, that's a great tool to use.
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