System Grab Bag

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dd

Convert and copy a file. More information: https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/dd.
  • Make a bootable USB drive from an isohybrid file (such like archlinux-xxx.iso) and show the progress:
    dd if={{path/to/file.iso}} of={{/dev/usb_drive}} status=progress
  • Clone a drive to another drive with 4 MiB block, ignore error and show the progress:
    dd if={{/dev/source_drive}} of={{/dev/dest_drive}} bs={{4M}} conv={{noerror}} status=progress
  • Generate a file of 100 random bytes by using kernel random driver:
    dd if=/dev/urandom of={{path/to/random_file}} bs={{100}} count={{1}}
  • Benchmark the write performance of a disk:
    dd if=/dev/zero of={{path/to/file_1GB}} bs={{1024}} count={{1000000}}
  • Generate a system backup into an IMG file and show the progress:
    dd if={{/dev/drive_device}} of={{path/to/file.img}} status=progress
  • Restore a drive from an IMG file and show the progress:
    dd if={{path/to/file.img}} of={{/dev/drive_device}} status=progress
  • Check the progress of an ongoing dd operation (run this command from another shell):
    kill -USR1 $(pgrep ^dd)

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