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at work I use my system more like a Virtual Machine than a real computer, as I am always reinstall the operating system fresh then downloading the same stuff over and over again, so I just made an Ubuntu 16.04 LTS system that is set up, it has corrected drivers and such for my nvidia card, is there some way I can create an .iso image of my pristine system so I dont have to remake it 3 to 5 times a day?

Also, I am aware of how bad this treatment is for the system, there is a more proper solution on its way, but it will be a bit.

muru
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  • possible duplicated http://askubuntu.com/questions/2596/comparison-of-backup-tools or http://askubuntu.com/questions/7809/how-to-back-up-my-entire-system – Mohamed Slama Jun 06 '16 at 02:44

4 Answers4

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I would recommend to use a disk imaging tool like Clonezilla, which can backup the complete contents of your disk into an image, which can be stored on a USB drive, another disk, a network share, or even a writeable DVD.

To use it, Download the current stable version, write the ISO to a DVD or USB stick, and boot it, and follow the instructions to create an image of the entire local disk (There's plenty of tutorials, too). You will then have a compressed image, which you can later restore onto the system, using the same clonezilla DVD or bootable USB. (You can even put Clonezilla and the image on the same USB stick for subsequent restores).

If you want to make an actual installable ISO of your system, there are various tools for this, such as SystemBack, however, I haven't tried any of these myself.

Community
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Jonas Czech
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  • Clonezilla is a good tool :-) Download the iso file and create a bootable CD disk or USB pendrive. Clonezilla will create a clone or a compressed image (a directory with a number of files) and it will only copy/clone the used blocks (not free space). – sudodus Aug 23 '17 at 06:10
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You can use Mondo Rescue Disaster Recovery Tool.

# wget ftp://ftp.mondorescue.org/ubuntu/16.04/mondorescue.sources.list
# sudo sh -c "cat mondorescue.sources.list >> /etc/apt/sources.list" 
# sudo apt-get update 
# sudo apt-get install mondo

Here you can find more screenshots about how to proceed.

Or, a simpler solution would be to use a Virtual Machine with Snapshots.

Artex
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  • I have tried this, however, the sources.list path throws and error on apt-get update –  Jun 04 '16 at 19:57
  • also, including this difficulty there is not support for 16.04 yet/ –  Jun 06 '16 at 10:10
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If you want to back up the whole drive, replace /dev/sdX with the drive location (e.g. /dev/sda).

If you want to back up just one partition, replace /dev/sdX with the partition location (e.g. /dev/sda1).

Type the following command into the terminal, replacing /dev/sdX as stated above (/path/to/iso/file is where the ISO is saved)

sudo dd if=/dev/sdX of=/path/to/iso/file


To restore the backup, boot off of a LiveCD and type the following into a terminal (Make sure /dev/sdX is still the same before continuing):

sudo dd if=/path/to/iso/file of=/dev/sdX

Please note if you only back up the partition, you will need to re-install the bootloader.

luk3yx
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Install systemback for ubuntu or debian :

  • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nemh/systemback
  • sudo apt update
  • sudo apt install systemback
Muhammad Hafid
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