Congratulations :) On 08-Jun-2017 8:03 PM, "Hubert Feyrer" <[email protected]> wrote:
> > FYI > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2017 16:26:34 +0200 (CEST) > From: Hubert Feyrer <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected], Hubert Feyrer <[email protected]> > Subject: g4u 2.6 released > > > After a five-year period for beta-testing and updating, I have finally > released g4u 2.6. With its origins in 1999, I'd like to say: > Happy 18th Birthday, g4u! > > About g4u: >>>> >>> > g4u ("ghosting for unix") is a NetBSD-based bootfloppy/CD-ROM that allows > easy cloning of PC harddisks to deploy a common setup on a number of PCs > using FTP. The floppy/CD offers two functions. The first is to upload the > compressed image of a local harddisk to a FTP server, the other is to > restore that image via FTP, uncompress it and write it back to disk. > Network configuration is fetched via DHCP. As the harddisk is processed as > an image, any filesystem and operating system can be deployed using g4u. > Easy cloning of local disks as well as partitions is also supported. > > The past: >>>> >>> > When I started g4u, I had the task to install a number of lab machines > with a dual-boot of Windows NT and NetBSD. The hype was about Microsoft's > "Zero Administration Kit" (ZAK) then, but that did barely work for the > Windows part - file transfers were slow, depended on the clients' hardware > a lot (requiring fiddling with MS DOS network driver disks), and on the ZAK > server the files for installing happened do disappear for no good reason > every now and then. Not working well, and leaving out NetBSD (and > everything elase), I created g4u. This gave me the (relative) pain of > getting things working once, but with the option to easily add network > drivers as they appeared in NetBSD (and oh they did!), plus allowed me to > install any operating system. > > The present: >>>> >>> > We've used g4u successfully in our labs then, booting from CDROM. I also > got many donations from public and private instituations plus comanies from > many sectors, indicating that g4u does make a difference. > > In the mean time, the world has changed, and CDROMs aren't used that much > any more. Network boot and USB sticks are today's devices of choice, > cloning of a full disk without knowing its structure has both advantages > but also disadvantages, and g4u's user interface is still command-line > based with not much space for automation. For storage, FTP servers are nice > and fast, but alternatives like SSH/SFTP, NFS, iSCSI and SMB for remote > storage plus local storage (back to fun with filesystems, anyone? avoiding > this was why g4u was created in the first place!) should be considered > these days. Further aspects include integrity (checksums), confidentiality > (encryption). This leaves a number of open points to address either by > future releases, or by other products. > > The future: >>>> >>> > At this point, my time budget for g4u is very limited. I welcome people to > contribute to g4u - g4u is Open Source for a reason. Feel free to get back > to me for any changes that you want to contribute! > > The changes: >>>> >>> > Major changes in g4u 2.6 include: > > * Make this build with NetBSD-current sources as of 2017-04-17 (shortly > before netbsd-8 release branch), binaries were cross-compiled from Mac > OS X 10.10 > * Many new drivers, bugfixes and improvements from NetBSD-current (see > beta1 and beta2 announcements) > * Go back to keeping the disk image inside the kernel as ramdisk, do not > load it as separate module. Less error prone, and allows to boot the > g4u (NetBSD) kernel from a single file e.g. via PXE (Testing and > documentation updates welcome!) > * Actually DO provide the g4u (NetBSD) kernel with the embedded g4u disk > image from now on, as separate file, g4u-kernel.gz > * In addition to MD5, add SHA512 checksums > > The software: >>>> >>> > Please see the g4u homepage's download section on how to get and use g4u. > http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/#reqs > > Enjoy! > > > - Hubert >
