Installing USB Image into flash drives in SUSE Studio

From openSUSE

    Start   FAQ   Tour   Howto    API   Bugs   Support   Download     

Linux

The GUI way

Install kiwi-tools-imagewriter from the openSUSE:Tools:Devel repository (http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/Tools:/Devel/). You can then run imagewriter as root and write your chosen image to your chosen USB device.

The dd way

In order to write your appliance to a USB stick, you will need to find the device to write to. After inserting the USB stick, open a terminal and type:

    df

You will see output similar to this:

/dev/sda2             30969600  15533336  13863100  53% /
udev                   1997904       108   1997796   1% /dev
/dev/sda5             92888248  85548000   2621560  98% /home
/dev/sda6             23671572    935276  21533836   5% /var
/dev/sdb1              7816228      1492   7814736   1% /media/disk

The last entry should be the USB stick you just plugged in. If you're in doubt, try removing it, running df again, and see if the line disappears. The left column in df's output is the partition, and the path up to the number is the path to the device. In our example, '/dev/sdb1' is the partition, and '/dev/sdb' is the path to the device.

Note: It is really, really important that you get the device path right - you can cause irreparable damage to your system if you don't.

After finding the device path, you will need to run dd to write your appliance to the USB stick. dd needs two arguments: the input file (your appliance), and the output file (the path to your USB device). In our example, the input file is named "/home/suse/myappliance.raw" and the path to the device is "/dev/sdb", so we would run this command from a terminal window:

    sudo dd if=/home/suse/myappliance.raw of=/dev/sdb bs=4k

The last argument (bs=4k) is optional, but adding it will make writing to the USB device much faster.

Please bear in mind that this will *completely overwrite the USB device so make sure you don't have any important data on it first!

Writing to a USB stick is usually quite slow, so don't be alarmed if it seems like it takes forever. When dd has finished, it will tell you some statistics about how much data it has written to the USB stick. If your USB stick has a light on it that blinks when data is being written, wait until it stops blinking before removing it.

Now you have a custom software appliance ready to be booted from your USB stick!

Windows

To make a bootable USB stick from the appliance you've created, select the disk image type in the build tab, and then build and download the gzip-compressed appliance. Uncompress and untar the appliance.

In order to write your appliance to a USB stick in a Windows enviroment, you will need to the 'dd for windows' tool.

To find the device to write, after inserting the USB stick, open the comando line (cmd) and type:

    dd --list

You will see output similar to this:

C:\temp>dd --list
rawwrite dd for windows version 0.5.
Written by John Newbigin <jn@it.swin.edu.au>
This program is covered by the GPL.  See copying.txt for details
Win32 Available Volume Information
\\.\Volume{ac56bf46-66cc-11dc-86f6-806d6172696f}\
  link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume1
  fixed media
  Mounted on \\.\c:

\\.\Volume{ac56bf47-66cc-11dc-86f6-806d6172696f}\
  link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume2
  fixed media
  Mounted on \\.\d:

\\.\Volume{d8bf0b41-66cd-11dc-a7a7-806d6172696f}\
  link to \\?\Device\CdRom0
  CD-ROM
  Mounted on \\.\e:

\\.\Volume{65668b14-8a7b-11dd-ab31-545543445208}\
  link to \\?\Device\Harddisk1\DP(1)0-0+8
  removeable media
  Mounted on \\.\f:


NT Block Device Objects
\\?\Device\CdRom0
  Removable media other than floppy. Block size = 2048
  size is 695670784 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0
  link to \\?\Device\Harddisk0\DR0
  Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
  size is 120034123776 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
  link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume1
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition2
  link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume2
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition3
  link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume3
  Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
  size is 6366334464 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition4
  link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume4
  Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
  size is 468808704 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition0
  link to \\?\Device\Harddisk1\DR7
  Removable media other than floppy. Block size = 512
  size is 1014497280 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition1
  link to \\?\Device\Harddisk1\DP(1)0-0+8
  Removable media other than floppy. Block size = 512
  size is 1014480896 bytes

Virtual input devices
 /dev/zero   (null data)
 /dev/random (pseudo-random data)
 -           (standard input)

Virtual output devices
 -           (standard output)

C:\temp>

The entry we are looking for is the one that says removable media which is the USB stick you just plugged in. If you're in doubt, try removing it, running dd --list again, and see if the line disappears. The information we need is the \\.\f:

\\.\Volume{65668b14-8a7b-11dd-ab31-545543445208}\
  link to \\?\Device\Harddisk1\DP(1)0-0+8
  removeable media
  Mounted on \\.\f:

Note: It is really, really important that you get the device path right - you can cause irreparable damage to your system if you don't.

After finding the device path, you will need to run dd to write your appliance to the USB stick. dd needs two arguments: the input file (your appliance), and the output file (the path to your USB device). In our example, the input file is named "c:\temp\myappliance.raw" and the path to the device is "\\.\f:", so we would run this command from a terminal window:

    dd if=c:\home\suse\myappliance.raw of=\\.\f: bs=4k

The last argument (bs=4k) is optional, but adding it will make writing to the USB device much faster.

Please bear in mind that this will *completely overwrite the USB device so make sure you don't have any important data on it first!

Writing to a USB stick is usually quite slow, so don't be alarmed if it seems like it takes forever. When dd has finished, it will tell you some statistics about how much data it has written to the USB stick. If your USB stick has a light on it that blinks when data is being written, wait until it stops blinking before removing it.

Now you have a custom software appliance ready to be booted from your USB stick!