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Ghosting :: Overview

System imaging and restoring (with Ghost)

Overview
If you have gone to the trouble of setting up a student station just the way you want that to be, it would be nice if that configuration could be re-used for other, similar computers without manually and tediously retracing all your steps. One way of doing that is to "clone" the disk image from the original computer onto others. This Topic Area is about that process. The program that is almost universally used for this purpose is called Ghost, and the overall process is often informally called Ghosting.

There are numerous ways of employing this basic idea, with several different purposes in mind. Our approach here will be to remain fairly generic in descriptions, but where it's helpful to get specific for examples we will take a typical purpose and use pattern: A school is distributing software, or even an OS upgrade, by the method of setting it up on one or more model computers, storing the image on CD or on the local server, and using Ghost to load the image(s) onto other similar computers.

Broadly speaking, that whole process clearly falls into two parts: preparing your image(s), and making use of your image(s). [From here on out, we'll deal with just one at a time, and leave implicit the point that there might be several.] Putting in a little more detail, we can look at a few steps involved in those two main parts.

Preparing the Image
  1. Deciding your purposes, and establishing a plan. For instance, you may be more interested in deployment purposes, or in restoring an unchanging image as a matter of cleanup (now probably something you would instead rely on Deep Freeze for). Also, plan out what images are used for what stations, how hardware-specific you need to be, and so on.
  2. Gathering tools and resources (including Ghost program), laying groundwork. The version of Ghost licensed to CPS and available on your Distribution Servers (or remediation CDs) will suffice for most situations; special situations may require purchase of another edition. For Windows 98 source machines, the CPS version of Ghost can be used under Windows. For Windows 2000 source machines, that will not work, and either a different edition of Ghost is needed or preparation of a bootdisk (floppy or CD) allowing for network connections. This will be a subject for the "Ghosting Advanced" workshop.
  3. Preparing the source (or "model") computer. This includes making sure the OS is current with Service Packs and and security updates, removing user documents and desktop clutter, installing the applications you want distributed. For Windows 2000 and later, running Sysprep can help make it relatively generic, and help also with the post-cloning setup steps. The CPS/OTS Ghosting handbook, which we will examine in the "Ghosting Advanced" workshop, has quite a bit about pre-imaging preparation.
  4. Running Ghost to capture and store the image. This may involve live user intervention to keep it simple, but can also be fully specified by command options which will make the process automatic.
Making Use of the Image
  1. Booting the target computer, with access to Ghost and the image. This is a stickier point than might be supposed, since the target computer cannot be running Windows, so the boot disk needs to provide either network connections, or use of the CDROM drive, or a Ghost image of the system partition held on a "side" partition that is not going to be replaced.
  2. Running Ghost to load the stored image onto the target computer. This may involve live user intervention to keep it simple, but can also be fully specified by command options which will make the process automatic.
  3. Fixing up and adjusting the newly cloned computer. This would include setting the network name and some other individuations. It might also mean installing or removing hardware drivers for items like network cards, maybe installing a printer connection. In the "Ghosting Advanced" workshop we will look at the post-loading behavior when an image has been taken from a computer prepared with Sysprep; and also some other specs from the CPS/OTS Ghosting handbook.
Additional points
For tutorials, tech notes, and other resources, please see the links page.

You are invited to join our "Ghosters" mailing list, for discussion of computer imaging and related matters, including domain login systems.

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This page is: http://tech.cuip.net/topics/ghost/start.html
Author: Mitch Marks
Last updated at 09:11 2005n June 17, 2005.
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