Preparing ISO for Clonezilla server use

[SacDeLait]

Context:
I have been tasked with preparing the Win11 image at work.
The previous "procedure" is quite outdated and in-house documentation is.. not great.
Right now I have a iso prepared through NTLite, installation using a usb ssd works like a charm at this point.

Is there a "drag and drop" solution to prepare my iso and drop it on the Clonezilla server?
After a week of overtime trying to make sense of things I would LOVE to avoid adding steps to the process.

Recommendations would be much appreciated.

TLDR: looking for drag&drop option to prep a NTLite generated iso on Clonezilla.

Thanks!

 

[garlin]

I don't think this works the way you imagined. Clonezilla or "Ghost" copies are created from a live system install, and captured as raw disk images. After your capture image is written to disk and reboots, you still need automation to reconfigure otherwise your PC's will think they're the same hostname.

NTLite creates offline images to install. You would need to boot from USB, do a partial Windows install up to the audit phase. Stop and perform a disk capture of the raw disk to another location (local disk or network share). Clonezilla is expecting a raw disk image which the boot client will extract to the target machine, prep some details before rebooting.

This entire process is entirely out of NTLite's control. You can use Clonezilla for deployment, but more work is involved.

The more traditional approach to using offline images, is to create a custom WinPE (boot.wim) which is PXE-booted. The WinPE mounts the install share from a remote server, and your Unattended file reads the image from there. You will have the same problem as Clonezilla, somewhere in the process you need to execute a script to rename each PC to a different hostname.

NTLite is great for customizing install images. But it doesn't solve the deployment questions.

 

[SacDeLait]

I don't think this works the way you imagined. Clonezilla or "Ghost" copies are created from a live system install, and captured as raw disk images. After your capture image is written to disk and reboots, you still need automation to reconfigure otherwise your PC's will think they're the same hostname.

NTLite creates offline images to install. You would need to boot from USB, do a partial Windows install up to the audit phase. Stop and perform a disk capture of the raw disk to another location (local disk or network share). Clonezilla is expecting a raw disk image which the boot client will extract to the target machine, prep some details before rebooting.

This entire process is entirely out of NTLite's control. You can use Clonezilla for deployment, but more work is involved.

The more traditional approach to using offline images, is to create a custom WinPE (boot.wim) which is PXE-booted. The WinPE mounts the install share from a remote server, and your Unattended file reads the image from there. You will have the same problem as Clonezilla, somewhere in the process you need to execute a script to rename each PC to a different hostname.

NTLite is great for customizing install images. But it doesn't solve the deployment questions.

You're 100% correct on my lack of understanding, I appreciate you taking the time to explain!

If you have any reading suggestions or tutorial links regarding clonezilla use for W11 I'm all ears .

Thanks!

 

[garlin]

I have no experience with Clonezilla, but "ghosting" isn't as popular a solution as it once was. Ghosting is based on the assumption that end-to-end Windows install time takes longer than bit-copying a disk image across the network.

The final install time can be reduced by running sysprep and capturing a new install image. This includes pre-installing any required user apps so it doesn't have to be done in Post-Setup.

When you ghost, typically it's done inside a Virtual Machine which has the smallest allocated .vmdx (or whatever virtual disk volume) possible. So when you export that to Clonezilla, it's only as large as it needs to be. The problem is the bit-copied machine has a shrunken disk volume, sitting inside a larger physical disk, and someone needs to extend the installed filesystem to recover the unused portion.

With WinPE PXE boot situation, you can take the sysprep image and install it remotely from a network share. Then it reboots, essentially ready and no volume growth is required. Presumably, you're using an Unattended file with a disk layout which uses the entire disk.

For either solution, it's not terribly hard but it requires keeping track of a lot of specific details. On whatever option you pick, do some outside research as this type of solution has already been done. The only difference is you're starting with customized ISO instead of the normal Windows release. This is specialized topic which needs to be answered on other Windows IT admin sites (which exist).