Cloning Drives

Overview

The SkyCore system includes a powerful drive cloning feature that allows you to create backups of your Jetson Orin partitions. This tool uses partclone to efficiently clone partitions and can compress images to save space.

With the clone functionality, you can:

Create backups of all partitions from a source device
Compress images to save storage space
Create archives for easy transfer or storage
Create bootable clone drives for Jetson Orin devices

Requirements

SkyCore installed on your system
Root privileges (sudo)
partclone package installed
Optional: lz4 or gzip for compression

Basic Usage

The basic syntax for cloning a drive is:

sudo skycore clone --source SOURCE_DEVICE [options]

Where SOURCE_DEVICE is the device you want to clone (e.g., /dev/nvme0n1 or /dev/sda).

Command Line Options

The following options are available for the skycore clone command:

Option	Description
`--source`, `-s`	Source device to clone (e.g., /dev/nvme0n1)
`--compress`, `-c`	Compress the image files (using lz4 or gzip)
`--output`, `-o`	Output directory for image files (default: current directory)
`--debug`, `-d`	Enable debug mode (verbose output)
`--archive`, `-a`	Create archive of backup (provide archive name without extension)
`--help`, `-h`	Display help information

Examples

Below are some examples of how to use the clone command:

Clone a drive to the current directory:
```
sudo skycore clone --source /dev/sda
```

Clone with compression to a specific directory:

sudo skycore clone --source /dev/sda --compress --output /tmp/my_backup

Create a compressed archive:

sudo skycore clone --source /dev/sda --compress --archive my_backup

Cloning Process

When you run the clone command, the following steps are performed:

The tool checks if partclone is installed
It identifies all partitions on the source device
It unmounts any mounted partitions (with your confirmation)
It backs up the partition table from the source device
It clones each partition with the appropriate filesystem handler
It compresses the images if the –compress option is used
It creates an archive if the –archive option is used

Restoring Images

To restore cloned images to a target drive, use the skycore flash command:

sudo skycore flash --target /dev/sdX --archive /path/to/backup.tar.gz

For more details, see the Flashing Drives documentation.

Troubleshooting

Common issues and solutions:

Cannot access source device

Error message: Error: Source device /dev/XXX does not exist or is not a block device.

Solution: Make sure the source device is correctly connected and recognized by the system. You can use lsblk to list available block devices.

Partclone not installed

Error message: Error: partclone is not installed.

Solution: Install partclone with sudo apt install partclone.

Permission denied

Error message: This script must be run as root

Solution: Run the command with sudo privileges.

Mounted partitions

Warning: Warning: /dev/sdaX is currently mounted. It will be unmounted.

Solution: Allow the script to unmount the partitions or manually unmount them before running the command.