Using "Symantec Ghost Solution Suite" with "VirtualBox"

[Lea Massiot]

Hello,

My question is about using "Symantec Ghost Solution Suite" with "VirtualBox" to ghost virtual operating systems.

I asked the questions below to the "Symantec" support but they told me I should ask the "VirtualBox" support.

Let's consider the following scenario:
- On a machine "M" running a Windows OS, install "VirtualBox".
- Create N virtual machines with one virtual disk each (for example, 6 would suit my needs) and set one OS per VM.
- Then, run "Windows Update" on each virtual OS to have up-to-date OSes.

Do you know if it's possible:
- to create a clone/an image of these virtual systems using "Symantec Ghost Solution Suite"?
- to restore these virtual systems from the "Ghost" clones/images?

The "Symantec" support told me it works with "VMware".

Can you help me?
Best regards.

[mpack]

If you can run the software on a physical PC then it will usually run on a virtual PC.

In this case, yes you can run Ghost inside a VM and use it to make disk images: but I don't know why you'd want to since the VM disks are already images, which you could simply copy or clone using the VBox GUI.

[Rootman]

Mpack is right, if it runs on a physical it will run on a virtual, just save (or make) an ISO of the boot disk somewhere, mount it in the VMs CD/DVD drive and peck F12 when booting to activate the VBox boot menu, choose CDROM and the ISO will boot. It's been a long time since I've used the Solution Sweet, so I can't remember much about it. If it lacks proper NIC drivers to load or write an image to a network resource you can use another disk image created just to hold the Ghost image, simply mount it to each VM - remember only ONE VM should have it at one time. I personally do it this way, only I use the older Ghost stand alone within a Windows PE (Winbuilder) ISO. Making a PE OS isn't hard but there is a bit of a learning curve.

The advantage is that you have a full backup of the disk, which is accessible via Ghost Explorer to any running Windows environment. This is helpful in restoring or extracting individual files or folders. The image can be compressed and only represents the data portion of the drive, whereas just a copy of a VDI is the FULL size of the disk and may be difficult to look into from another OS.

Being that you are simply cloning the same VM over and over it may be more piratical just to clone the disk using VMWare or another tool like the cloneVDI tool and leave the Ghost for just backups. If you are concerned about all the VMs having the same SID in Windows then use sysprep just prior to cloning it, when the new OS boots it will go through the Windows mini setup and you can apply a new name and allow it to generate a new SID.

[socratis]

My question is about using "Symantec Ghost Solution Suite" with "VirtualBox" to ghost virtual operating systems.
- On a machine "M" running a Windows OS, install "VirtualBox".
- Create N virtual machines with one virtual disk each (for example, 6 would suit my needs) and set one OS per VM.
- Then, run "Windows Update" on each virtual OS to have up-to-date OSes.

Do you know if it's possible:
- to create a clone/an image of these virtual systems using "Symantec Ghost Solution Suite"?
- to restore these virtual systems from the "Ghost" clones/images?

The way I (maybe mis)understood it is that you want to use Ghost to clone the VMs. Am I right? If that's the case, VBox has a built-in feature for cloning VMs.

[Lea Massiot]

Hello and thank you for your answers.

I'm trying to do it.

For the beginners (like me), I had to enable "Intel Virtualization" in the BIOS.
http://www.udjamaflip.com/software/33-u ... fi-3d-bios

These are beginner questions so please be sympathetic. Thank you .

So, I have started a "VirtualBox" installation for the first time.
I've noticed it includes a "VirtualBox USB Support" (I unchecked it) which made me ask myself a few questions.

We are a software editor.
A colleague suggested we could use virtual machines (Vista, 7, 8.1...) to test our software including its installation.
This software works in combination with USB hardware like USB printers and USB barcode readers.

In practice, on a "real" machine, people may experience a few difficulties when they plug in these USB devices.
Usually, the appropriate USB driver is automatically downloaded from the Internet.
Sometimes the user has to install the USB drivers manually.

Do you really think that testing our software along with its hardware on virtual machines/oses is relevant?
Do you think we should test our software along with its hardware on "real" machines instead?

Thank you for helping.
Best regards.

[techtronic]

Absolutely it's relevant. A virtual machine is pretty much a "real" machine. It can use any of the hardware that the host has access to, and if you're needing to test your software on multiple platforms, than having multiple virtual's (7, 8, etc.) is the way to go. You can configure virtualbox to control usb ports rather than the host, or just assign certain usb accessories to the guest machine instead of the host.

It also saves time and money. Instead of buying multiple machines to load with different platforms for testing, and having to move/setup multiple stations, you might as well just use virtuals to perform the same task from the computer you're already on. I do this all the time. I have 6 different machines in virtualbox, and when doing work for a client, I'll test work in whatever virtual machine that is set up to mock the client's environment.

[Lea Massiot]

Thank you for your contribution.
Best regards.