Image replicator make

BE SURE TO LINK TO THE IMAGES BEFORE TRANSCLUDING THIS SECTION

Two types of USB Image Replicator images are available for this platform. They have the same contents but are intended for different purposes.

The disk image is easier to write from different workstation OSs, will auto-expand to the full disk length on its first boot, and is intended to be used for image capture (and later image writing) due to its small size and auto-expansion process. We recommend this route for users who may not have access to a Linux workstation or need to capture images from a golden unit first.

The tarball image is easiest to write from a Linux workstation, but requires creating a partition table on the USB disk (if one does not already exist), formatting the filesystem, and unpacking the tarball. It can readily be used for for both image capture and writing, but is the easiest route when image capture is not needed.

From Disk Image

This process uses a small disk image that can be written to a USB device. This disk image expands on its first boot to the full length of the disk before beginning the image capture process. This disk is recommended for users who may not have access to a Linux workstation or who need to capture images from a golden unit. It is possible to use the disk image for just image writing, however, in order to ensure full disk space is available it is recommended to write the disk, boot it on a unit, let the image capture process complete, insert the USB disk in to a workstation, and then remove the captured image files before copying in the desired image files from the workstation.

Linux Workstation Windows Workstation MacOS Workstation

From Tarball

This process requires a Linux workstation (or knowledge of setting up a disk and writing a tarball on an OS of choice) to write the USB disk. Note that in many cases, one of our computer platforms running our stock Linux image can be used if a Linux workstation is not available. After writing the tarball to a USB disk, the full length of the USB disk would be available to copy source images to in order to write them to other units.

Instructions here

The blast image and scripts require a minimum of 50 MB; this plus any disk images or tarballs used dictate the minimum disk size required. The USB drive must have at least 1 partition, with the first partition being formatted ext2/3 or fat32/vfat.

Note:

The ext4 filesystem can be used instead of ext3, but it may require additional options. U-Boot does not support the 64bit addressing added as the default behavior in recent revisions of mkfs.ext4. If using e2fsprogs 1.43 or newer, the options "-O ^64bit,^metadata_csum" must be used with ext4 for proper compatibility. Older versions of e2fsprogs do not need these options passed nor are they needed for ext3.

# This assumes USB drive is /dev/sdc:
sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdc1
sudo mkdir /mnt/usb/
sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb/
sudo tar --numeric-owner -xf /path/to/tsimx6ul_usb_blaster-latest.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/usb/