Cloning (backup) Nokia Flash on a Linux Machine

ALL,

Regarding the spare Nokia IP560, I have downgraded the IPSO to 4.1 BUILD19 as requested. After Tuesday’s change window granting myself access for web and ssh to the Nokia devices I will pull the config for firewall2 to install on the test box for the next step of the test.

During my research, I thought it might be beneficial to have copies of our Nokia flash disks (clones) so if we had another incent like we did the other Friday, recover would literally take 5 – 10 Minutes.

I set about to clone the Nokia’s flash; it was a SimpleTech 1GB CF. Below is the geometry pulled from IPSO boot manager:

Disk Devices:
   IO port 0x1f0 wdc0: unit 0 (wd0): <STI Flash 8.0.0>
      1024MB (2001888 sectors), 993 cyls, 32 heads, 63 S/T, 512 B/S

I used DD on a linux box to create the disk image:

root@penguin mnt]# dd if=/dev/sdb of=/opt/ipso_41-build19.out
> 2001888+0 records in
> 2001888+0 records out
> 1024966656 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 981.06 s, 1.0 MB/s [root@penguin

You can see the records in my image match the sectors on the disk just writing this raw.

I then tried to copy it to a cheap 1GB CF I got in France:

mnt]# dd if=/opt/ipso_41-build19.out of=/dev/sdb
> dd: writing to `/dev/sdb': No space left on device
> 2000881+0 records in
> 2000880+0 records out
> 1024450560 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 2727.64 s, 376 kB/s

You can see that it failed because the format capacity wasn’t up to par – the image would not boot and the test failed.

Not to suffer defeat in vein - I then went to Walgreens; they had a SanDisk Ultra II 2GB CF. This would be sufficient as it is large enough for the image.

if=/opt/ipso_41-build19.out of=/dev/sdb
2001888+0 records in
2001888+0 records out
1024966656 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 2522.81 s, 406 kB/s

Success! Now to try the image on the IP560…

Below is the output of “sysinfo” in boot manager on the Nokia using the cloned flash:

Disk Devices:
   IO port 0x1f0 wdc0: unit 0 (wd0): <SanDisk SDCFH2-002G>
      2048MB (4001760 sectors), 992 cyls, 64 heads, 63 S/T, 512 B/S

I am including captures from the boot process of the Nokia IP650 with both the cloned flash and the Nokia flash.

Conclusion:
We should install the cloned flash on a Nokia appliance and run it in a lab environment for a predetermined time period to ensure that functionality and reliability meets Aviva standards. If it does, we could use cloned Flash to recover from future disk crashes. This could also be used in a DR scenario?