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## create snapshot on mounted samba share

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### create snapshot on mounted samba share

by ewald » Fri Feb 20, 2015 6:40 am

I am trying to clone my system (Linux Mint 17) and don't have enough diskspace left on system harddrive. Thus I am trying to create the system clone and the iso on a mounted samba share. It fails though. I am ending up with an iso of 38mb which doesn't boot when burned to a cd. How can I diagnose and preferentially fix this problem.

ewald
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### Re: create snapshot on mounted samba share

by fsmithred » Fri Feb 20, 2015 12:14 pm

First, check the error log. (/var/log/refractasnapshot_errors.log) One common cause for a small iso like that is to run out of disk space when the iso is being created, toward the end of the script.
If that's not the issue, run it in debug mode from a terminal as 'refractasnapshot-gui -d'. That will record every action the script does in . Also, look in the work/myfs to make sure the whole system got copied.
Check your excludes file. I assume you added a bunch of stuff to it, or you should have, if you're trying to make a snapshot of a full disk.
Last, but not least, I don't know if it's possible to use a samba share as the work dir. I forget what it does with the file permissions, but that could be a problem.

fsmithred
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### Re: create snapshot on mounted samba share

by ewald » Fri Feb 20, 2015 1:36 pm

Thanks for the reply. Initially running out of disk space was the problem, hence the samba share. I did check the error log, but since it has the errors from all failed attempts so far without time stamp its hard to say which lines apply to the latest attempt.
Looking at /myfs reveals that only the directory structure got created but the directories are empty.
I will follow your advice to run in debug mode. Hopefully it will give me some insight.

ewald
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### Re: create snapshot on mounted samba share

by fsmithred » Fri Feb 20, 2015 1:52 pm

The error log should only contain messages from the last attempt. Are you using the gui or cli snapshot script? Which version?

fsmithred
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### Re: create snapshot on mounted samba share

by ewald » Fri Feb 20, 2015 6:21 pm

I am pretty shure to be using refracta, the version: refractasnapshot-base_9.0.9-7_all, refractasnapshot-gui_9.0.9-8_all.
And yes, from the last attempt using the refractasnapshot-gui -d command I have a whole lot of information:
first: (zenity:7221): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: gtk-widgets.css:62:17: Theming engine 'unico' not found (not sure if that's important)
second: apparently rsync wants to "chown" the files in myfs and gets l"permission denied" . So as you already suspected permissions are messed up.
Directories snapshot and work are created. work is empty (after the last attempt) snapshot has two subdirectories iso and myfs. myfs has the directory structure of the system, however, not accessible by the regular user, only if I open the file manager as root I do have access. Some direcotries are complete, others aren't.
iso has two directories: isolinux and live. isolinux has 19 files in it and live has 3.
For the next run I will try to set the permissions to 777 for the samba share and see what happens.
Another problem I am having with the gui is the fact that the size of the gui window isn't correct and it can't be resized either. So I don't have access to the buttons which might be there. All in all a pretty messed up situation.
I went through the procedure a week ago with a Lubuntu system and it worked like a charm. The system was a lot smaller though and I didn't have to use the samba share.

ewald
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  Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2015 7:36 pm

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### Re: create snapshot on mounted samba share

by fsmithred » Fri Feb 20, 2015 7:29 pm

Check your version of syslinux (apt-cache policy syslinux), and if it's 4.x, you're good with the version of refractasnapshot you're using, but if it's 6.x, you need to use one of the testing versions here (generally, whatever is the latest version is the best choice)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/refracta/files/testing/
To get around the permissions problem, format a usb flash drive to ext2 and use that for the work directory (and maybe the snapshot directory, if you're really tight on space).
To get around the window size problem, just run the cli script (refractasnapshot -d) in a root terminal (or with sudo).
Don't worry about zenity, yad, or gtk theme errors. Those are pretty normal and appear to be harmless (based on about four years of observation.)

fsmithred
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### Re: create snapshot on mounted samba share

by ewald » Sat Feb 21, 2015 9:08 am

I put the project with the system that needs additional disk space on hold and tried to clone another Linux Mint 17 system that has enough disk space.
Result: an iso of 68mb! I assume that's not right. The log says isoimage: warning: more than 1024 cylinders: 66249.
Does this mean that the image would be too big, i.e. bigger than the 4gb max? If yes, how would I go about to reduce size. Probably using some kind of exclude list but I don't know exactly how to set that up.

ewald
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### Re: create snapshot on mounted samba share

by fsmithred » Sat Feb 21, 2015 2:13 pm

The excludes file is /usr/lib/refractasnapshot/snapshot_excludes.list. You can edit it directly or through the gui script if you choose Setup at the first screen. I recommend keeping the image small - use it to back up your system in case you need to reinstall. Back up your data files separately, using a more traditional backup method.
Edit: Making a live snapshot of the system is good if you think you'll need to install on a different machine. If you're going to reinstall on the same machine, something like clonezilla might be better, because it keeps all your configs and other files. Things like apt history and package cache, system logs, network settings all get excluded in the snapshot.
Another way to reduce the size is to use xz compression. There's an option for that in the config file. Just uncomment the line. (mksquash_opt or something like that) It's slower, but it makes a smaller image.
Pretty sure we fixed the problem of isos bigger than 4gb with the '-allow-limited-size' option. A quick look at a few search hits for that error message suggests that the problem is with isohybrid. If you don't absolutely need it to be isohybrid, try turning that off in the config file. If you plan to use the iso on a usb stick, there are better ways to image the flash drive than to dd or cat an isohybrid image.

fsmithred
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### Re: create snapshot on mounted samba share

by ewald » Sat Feb 21, 2015 3:16 pm

So just to make sure that I am getting this right:
You agree with my hypothesis that the message warning: more than 1024 cylinders: 66249 is the problem and indicates that the image is too big?
My intention is to have a live DVD from which I can install the same Linux Mint 17 with the same software and the same arrangements on any other system.
I am not planig to use the iso on a USB stick.
Thus I'll try without the isohybrid option followed by the xz compression option.

ewald
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### Re: create snapshot on mounted samba share

by fsmithred » Sun Feb 22, 2015 12:24 pm

> ewald wrote:So just to make sure that I am getting this right:
> You agree with my hypothesis that the message warning: more than 1024 cylinders: 66249 is the problem and indicates that the image is too big?
> .

Well, I was going to say that I can't find any evidence that this has to do with the size of the iso, but then I found this -
http://errors.linuxnix.com/isohybrid-wa ... his-devic/

> This error will come when your ISO file is more than 1GB size.

Which doesn't seem to make sense when your iso is coming out so small. This error message might not be the right thing to focus on. Can you find any other errors or inconsistencies in the error log? Care to share the full log with me so I can look through it?

fsmithred
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