rpi-clone is a shell script for cloning a running Raspberry Pi booted source
disk (SD card or USB disk) to a destination disk which will be bootable.
Destinations include:
rpi-clone can be used on other Debian systems, but is only tested and meant
for Raspberry Pi OS. See 'On other OS' below.
This project is a fork of the original
rpi-cloneby Bill Wilson, but the original project was abandoned in 2020.
An initialization clone starts by imaging the source disk partition table to the destination disk This is is a convenience that gets the destination disk partitioned so you can avoid manual partitioning. Partitions are then cloned by making destination file systems matching the source file system types followed by file system syncs to the destinations. Initialization clones are used when the source file system types or number of partitions do not match the destination. An initialization clone can also be forced by command line option. An alternative to imaging the source partition table is to manually create partitions on a destination disk with file systems made to match the types in the source partitions. See example 7 below.
If the source and destination disk partition file system types match, the clone does not start over with a partition table image and making of filesytems, but instead mounts destination partitions corresponding to the source and syncs the file systems. After a first clone of a disk, this operation is an incremental sync which copies only the files that have changed in the source disk and is much faster than an initilization clone.
rpi-clone is on github and is downloaded by cloning the repository. It is a standalone script and the install is a simple copy to a bin directory. When run it checks its program dependencies and offers to install needed packages. But currently rpi-clone knows how to install only Debian packages with apt-get.
$ curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/geerlingguy/rpi-clone/master/install | sudo bashAlternatively, you can manually install from source if you don't trust the
curl | sudo bashinstall script:$ git clone https://github.com/geerlingguy/rpi-clone.git $ cd rpi-clone $ sudo cp rpi-clone rpi-clone-setup /usr/local/sbin
Make sure /usr/local/sbin is in your $PATH and then run
rpi-clone or rpi-clone-setup with no args to print usage.
rpi-clone-setup is for setting the hostname in /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts
files. It is run automatically by rpi-clone if -s args are given,
but before your first clone using a -s option, test run rpi-clone-setup with:
$ sudo rpi-clone-setup -t testhostnameAnd check the files under /tmp/clone-test to be sure the files have been
edited correctly. If you need additional customizations to a clone,
add them to the rpi-clone-setup script.
To install on another OS, rpi-clone may be renamed to suit. For example, on my Debian desktop I rename:
$ git clone https://github.com/geerlingguy/rpi-clone.git
$ cd rpi-clone
$ sudo cp rpi-clone /usr/local/sbin/sys-clone
$ sudo cp rpi-clone-setup /usr/local/sbin/sys-clone-setupOn SD card systems other than Raspberry Pi, rpi-clone may work because an initialize clone images the sectors through the start of partition 1 to capture the partition table and possible boot loader blocks. However, unlike the Pi, a bootloader install may need to be run in the setup script. As of version 2.0.21 this may be a new requirement for some systems because rpi-clone no longer images past the end of the first partition.
rpi-clone does not directly support a traditional desktop OS because there are different possible bootloaders and while device names or PARTUUID are handled for /etc/fstab, file system UUIDs are not handled. However, it works for me and I use rpi-clone renamed as sys-clone on my Debian desktop because I use PARTUUID in my fstab and I use the grub bootloader (rpi-clone will run grub-install if it detects it installed and there is a /boot/grub directory). Using PARTUUID makes fstab editing simple because only a single number identifies the entire disk. I do have possible ambiguity in my grub menu setup because I only use device names in my menu entries while the fstab uses PARTUUID. But what actually happens is that with a root=/dev/sda2 in my grub menu default boot line, a USB disk will boot as sda if I have the disk plugged in when booting, which is what I want. Device names in fstab are a bad idea when doing this because the USB disk root partition could boot and then mount my internal drive partitions instead of the USB partitions. But I use PARTUUID so there will not be cross mounting. And I have a couple of extra grub menu entries with other root variations just in case.
To get a usage screen showing available options, run rpi-clone without any arguments:
pi@rpi0: $ sudo rpi-clone
No destination disk given.
usage: sys-clone sdN {-v|--verbose} {-f|--force-initialize} {-f2}
{-u|--unattended} {-U|--Unattended} {-q|--quiet}
{-s|--setup host} {-e|--edit-fstab sdX } {-m|--mountdir dir }
{-L|--label-partitions label} {-l|--leave-sd-usb-boot}
{-a|--all-sync} {-F|--Force-sync} {-x} {-V|--version}
{--convert-fstab-to-partuuid}
{--exclude=PATTERN} {--exclude-from=FILE}
-v - verbose rsync, list all files as they are copied.
-f - force initialize the destination disk by imaging the booted disk
partition structure. File systems are then synced or imaged.
-f2 - force initialize only the first 2 partitions to the destination.
So a multi partition USB boot can initialize clone back to
a 2 partition SD card.
-p size - resize destination partition 1 to 'size' bytes. For two partition
initialize (when first clone to blank disk or using -f2 or -f).
Use 'sizeM' for MiB size units. eg -p 256M equals -p 268435456
-u - unattended clone if not initializing. No confirmations asked,
but abort if disk needs initializing or on error.
-U - unattended even if initializing. No confirmations asked,
but abort only on errors.
-q - quiet mode, no output unless errors or initializing. Implies -u.
-s host - add 'host' to args passed to script rpi-clone-setup and run it
after cloning but before unmounting partitions. For setting
clone disk hostname, but args can be what the script expects.
You can give multiple -s arg options.
-e sdX - edit destination fstab to change booted device names to new
device 'sdX'. This is Only for fstabs that use device names.
Used for setting up a USB bootable disk.
-m dir - Add dir to a custom list of mounted directories to sync. Then
the custom list will be synced instead of the default of all
mounted directories. The root directory is always synced.
Not for when initializing.
-L lbl - label for ext type partitions. If 'lbl' ends with '#', replace
the '#' with a partition number and label all ext partitions.
Otherwise apply label to root partition only.
-l - leave SD card to USB boot alone when cloning to SD card mmcblk0
from a USB boot. This preserves a SD card to USB boot setup
by leaving the SD card cmdline.txt using the USB root. When
cloning to USB from SD card this option sets up the SD card
cmdline.txt to boot to the USB disk.
-a - Sync all partitions if types compatible, not just mounted ones.
-F - force file system sync or image for some errors. eg:
If source used > destination space error, do the sync anyway.
If a source partition mount error, skip it and do other syncs.
-x - use set -x for very verbose bash shell script debugging
-V - print rpi-clone version.$ rpi-clone -f -p 256M sda$ rpi-clone sda$ rpi-clone mmcblk0If fstab uses PARTUUID:
$ rpi-clone -l sda
If fstab uses device names:
$ rpi-clone -l sda -e sda$ rpi-clone -l mmcblk0$ rpi-clone sdb$ rpi-clone sdb -f2If the source third partition is not mounted:
$ rpi-clone sdb
If the source third partition is mounted, select partitions to clone:
$ rpi-clone sdb -m /bootNote - if a larger USB disk is manually partitioned to create more than three partitions as in example 7, a smaller disk can be initialize cloned to only if it is large enough to hold at least part of the last source partition. If it is not, then the clone will have to be to a two partition -f2 clone or a clone to a manually partitioned destination. So, for a multi partition disk, select partition number and sizes with a eye towards how you will be cloning back to smaller disks.
In this example a new SD card in a USB card reader has been plugged in that I want to clone to, but it could also be to a USB disk or from a USB disk back to the SD card slot. In this case, the disk showed up as sdb because I have another USB disk sda plugged in. Look in /proc/partitions to see where yours is. The destination disk does not have partition types matching the booted disk.
pi@rpi0: $ sudo rpi-clone sdbRun setup script : no Verbose mode : no -----------------------: WARNING : All destination disk sdb data will be overwritten! : The partition structure will be imaged from mmcblk0. -----------------------:
Initialize and clone to the destination disk sdb? (yes/no): yes Optional destination rootfs /dev/sdb2 label (16 chars max): SD-RPI-8a ...
#### 2) Subsequent clone to the same SD card in USB card reader as example 1
This time the destination partition type will match the source booted
types, and I'll add a rpi-clone-setup script -s arg to set a
different destination disk hostname.
+ The clone will be a pure sync where only modified files will be copied.
+ The setup script will set the hostnames in the destination disk files
/etc/hostname and /etc/hosts to what I give with -s, in this case rpi2.pi@rpi0: $ sudo rpi-clone sdb -s rpi2
Run setup script : rpi-clone-setup rpi2 Verbose mode : no -----------------------:
Ok to proceed with the clone? (yes/no):
#### 3) Cloning a Pi3 when fstab uses PARTUUID
If fstab and cmdline.txt use PARTUUID as is the case in recent
Raspbian distributions, rpi-clone always edits**
the destination fstab and cmdline.txt to use the PARTUUID of the
destination disk. So the destination is always bootable. If it
is a USB flash or hard drive it is automatically bootable on a Pi3
as a USB disk so long as the Pi3 has been USB boot enabled with
a program_usb_boot_mode=1 line in /boot/config.txt.
** There is one exception. When using the -l option, which is used for
creating or preserving a special SD card to USB boot, the cmdline.txt
on the SD card is not edited after a clone to the SD card, see
examples 4 and 5.
#### 4) Creating a USB bootable disk for other than a USB enabled Pi3
rpi-clone can be used to create a SD card to USB boot setup and preserve
that setup when cloning from a USB boot back to the SD card slot.
With the SD card booted and a target USB disk plugged in and assuming
the USB disk shows up as sda, the initial clone command depends on
fstab usage of device names or PARTUUID.
=> Before you do this, have a backup of your booted SD card made
as in example 2 without the -l option because these steps will
change the booted SD card cmdline.txt to a USB boot.
If fstab is using PARTUUID, run:$ rpi-clone -l sda
Or if fstab is using device names, run:$ rpi-clone -l -e sda sda
+ Destination disk "sda" will be synced or initialized if required (or add
the -f option to force initialize).
+ After files are synced the destination sda fstab and cmdline.txt will
be edited to reference either device names or PARTUUID for the USB disk.
For the fstab uses device names case, the "-e sda" means to edit the
destination /etc/fstab to use "sda" for the root (will be sda1) and
/boot (will be sda2) lines. Also, the destination disk /boot/cmdline.txt
will be edited to use root=/dev/sda2. It is expected that when the USB disk
is plugged in for booting to, it will be sda and this will be a cause
of boot failure if it is not. So using PARTUUID is better because that
will reliably boot.
+ The -l option causes the SD card cmdline.txt to be backed up to
cmdline.boot and the destination USB disk cmdline.txt to be copied
to the SD card. Since the USB cmdline.txt was edited to reference
the USB disk, the next Pi boot will start with the SD card
/boot partition, but will redirect to using the USB root partition.
Since the USB fstab was edited to reference the USB disk, the Pi will boot
with the USB partition 1 mounted on /boot.
The SD card /boot partition that initiated the boot process
is no longer in use but can remain in place for subsequent
SD card to USB boots. To make the SD card standalone bootable
again, its cmdline.boot can be moved back to cmdline.txt.
+ If -l is not used, rpi-clone will not replace the currently booted SD card
cmdline.txt and it will need to be edited by hand for the USB boot to work.
+ Also a caution note if fstab uses device names: check your
/boot to be sure it is mounted with /dev/sda1 after booting to USB.
I have a Pi where this fails even though syslog says it mounted.
Just be sure to check when you first do this and before you try example 5.
Now when the Pi is booted from SD card to USB and the SD card is no longer
in use, the SD card slot is available for cloning to.
#### 5) Cloning back to SD cards in the SD card slot from USB boots
Whether the boot was a Pi3 straight to USB or a SD card to USB,
the SD card is not in use so it is free to clone back to. This
creates a standalone bootable SD card:$ rpi-clone mmcblk0
However, for the case where the boot was SD card to USB,
this destroys the ability of the SD card to boot to USB.
To preserve that SD to USB boot setup, run:$ rpi-clone -l mmcblk0
+ The SD card is cloned to as before. It now has the USB /boot/cmdline.txt.
+ But the -l option prevents editing that cmdline.txt to reference the SD card.
It is left alone so that it still references the USB root partition.
So the clone has created USB disk to SD card backup while preserving
the SD card to USB boot setup. On the SD card a backup cmdline.boot
is created and edited to reference the SD card. That backup can be moved
to be cmdline.txt to make the SD card standalone bootable should
you ever want to do that.
Or you could just clone to the SD card without using -l.
+ Both above mmcblk0 clone commands apply whether using PARTUUID or
device names. When using device names and cloning to SD cards,
rpi-clone knows fstab device names need editing so "-e mmcblk0p" is assumed.
Now the SD card can be left in permanently and periodically cloned to for
backups and reboots to USB will work as you want. Or other SD
cards can be inserted to create a set of backups.
If making a clone for another Pi that will be SD card bootable, don't use -l.
+ Warning: this works if the original SD card to USB boot setup has edited
the USB /etc/fstab to reference USB partitions as is done by rpi-clone
when creating a USB bootable disk with -l. If you have an existing
SD card to USB boot setup where this was not done, then your USB boot
likely has the SD card /boot partition mounted, the SD card is in use
and using rpi-clone for a clone back to the SD card slot will not work.
#### 6) Clone to smaller 4GB SD card
I happen to have an old 4GB SD card and here's a try to clone to it:root@rpi2: ~$ rpi-clone sda
Run setup script : no Verbose mode : no -----------------------: FATAL : Partition 2: source used > destination space. -----------------------:
Aborting! Use -F to override used > space fail.
So even if rpi-clone thinks that the sync won't work because of lack of
space, there is a -F option which will allow the clone to proceed
anyway. The interesting thing about this case is that while this might
seem a bad idea, the sync will actually come close to succeeding. That's
because the root used space includes a 1.8GB file system based
swap file (/var/swap) that will be excluded from the sync. If this
clone is forced with -F, the card may boot, but there could be some missing
files if the rsync runs out of space and fails to complete and some things
would not work.
This is just a FYI.
#### 7) Clone SD card to USB disk with extra partitions
If you have space with a larger USB disk, you can manually partition it
with extra partitions and clone to it. If partition types and file systems
are made to match the booted SD card, then rpi-clone will sync files and
not try to initialize so the extra destination partitions will not be
touched.
The requirement to make this work is getting the first two partition types
and file systems right, but the sizes may be different. gparted will make
filesystems automatically but cfdisk or fdisk will not and if
file systems aren't made, rpi-clone will fail to mount the partitions.
For this example I wanted to partition a 64GB flash disk into 3 partitions
so I could have a large third partition for data.
I made the second root partition 16GB so I could clone this to a
32GB disk and still have a data partition.
If using cfdisk or fdisk to make the partitions and then making the file
systems, the work would be:Partition Type Size Make File System 1: type c W95 FAT32 (LBA) 100MiB mkfs -t vfat -F 32 /dev/sda1 2: type 83 Linux 16GiB mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2 3: type 83 Linux rest of disk mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
But what I did was use gparted so the file systems were made for me.
Also, in anticipation of initialize cloning back to SD cards,
I set the first partition start to be 8192 (by setting "Free space preceding"
to 4MiB) to match Raspbian distribution SD card images.
Also I made partition sizes in multiples of 4MiB for SD card compatibility.
Now I cloned to the 64GB disk. It synced only my two booted partitions
instead of initializing, and it left the third partition alone:pi@rpi2: ~$ sudo rpi-clone sda
Run setup script : no Verbose mode : no -----------------------:
Ok to proceed with the clone? (yes/no):
This was a boot enabled Pi3, so I simply powered down, pulled the SD
card, and rebooted into the three partition USB disk.
#### 8) Clone 64GB USB disk with extra partitions to smaller 32GB USB disk
With the USB disk made in example 7 booted and the third partition mounted,
this is a clone to a smaller 32GB USB disk that is still large enough
to hold three partitions. The disk is not manually formatted so it will
be an initialize clone. The space used in the 64GB source third partition
fits into the size of the destination 32GB disk third partition,
so there is no problem:pi@rpi2: ~$ sudo rpi-clone sdb
Run setup script : no Verbose mode : no -----------------------: WARNING : All destination disk sdb data will be overwritten! : The partition structure will be imaged from sda. -----------------------:
Initialize and clone to the destination disk sdb? (yes/no):
Note that if I had partitioned the 64GB disk with more than three
partitions it would have been more difficult to clone down to the
32GB card. If there had been 4 partitions, then a smaller disk has
to be large enough to image the sizes of the first three source partitions.
If the disk is too small for that, then an initialize clone would be
limited to a two partition clone as the next example shows. The other
alternative would be a manual partition. The take away is that you need
to consider how you would be cloning to smaller disks when you partition
a larger disk for a Pi.
#### 9) Clone 64GB USB disk with extra partitions to new 16GB SD card
With a USB boot, the SD card slot is available for use, so I plugged in
a 16GB SD card to clone to:pi@rpi2: ~$ sudo rpi-clone mmcblk0
Initialize required : partition - types mismatch. : The minimum destination disk size is 16.9GB : The destination disk is too small. : You could try a two partition -f2 clone. -----------------------:
This failed because there is a type mismatch that requires an initialize
and additionally the SD card does not have the space for three partitions
given the size of the source disk second partition. The solution is to
tell rpi-clone to clone only the first two partitions and accept that
this backup cannot back up the data partition. The -f2 option is just
for going back to a two partition disk from a multi partitioned disk:pi@rpi2: ~$ sudo rpi-clone mmcblk0 -f2
-f2 : force initialize to first two partitions only Run setup script : no Verbose mode : no -----------------------: WARNING : All destination disk mmcblk0 data will be overwritten! : The partition structure will be imaged from sda. -----------------------:
Initialize and clone to the destination disk mmcblk0? (yes/no):
I'm using PARTUUID in /etc/fstab, but if I weren't, this clone would also
automatically edit mmcblk0p names into the destination disk fstab.
#### 10) Sync Clone 64GB USB disk with extra partitions to 16GB SD card
With an initialize clone to the SD card done in example 8, I expect
subsequent clones to be sync clones. But I run the rpi-clone command and
I get an error requiring another initialize. This time the
error is because rpi-clone wants to clone the mounted third partition and
there is no destination third partition:pi@rpi2: ~$ sudo rpi-clone mmcblk0
Initialize required : partition 3 /home/pi/media - destination missing. : Unmount source partitions or use -m -----------------------:
But I want to sync and not do another long -f2 initialize,
so there are two choices.
If I unmount the third partition, the clone will sync. If I don't want
to do that, I can tell rpi-clone to sync clone only the /boot partition
(the root partition is included by default):pi@rpi2: ~$ sudo rpi-clone mmcblk0 -m /boot
Run setup script : no Verbose mode : no -----------------------:
Ok to proceed with the clone? (yes/no):
#### 11) Clones from my Debian desktop
Here are a couple of runs to show how rpi-clone looks handling more complex
partitioning on my desktop. I have three primary partitions and extra
extended partitions. I don't have a separate /boot partition but have
a small first partition in case I want to change that.
It probably won't work if there is a primary partition
after an extended partition.~$ sudo sys-clone sdb /usr/sbin/grub-install
Run setup script : no Run grub : grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/clone /dev/sdb Verbose mode : no -----------------------: WARNING : All destination disk sdb data will be overwritten! : The partition structure will be imaged from sda. -----------------------:
Initialize and clone to the destination disk sdb? (yes/no):
And a subsequent sync to the same disk after I have manually labeled all
the partitions:~$ sudo sys-clone sdb /usr/sbin/grub-install
Run setup script : no Run grub : grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/clone /dev/sdb Verbose mode : no -----------------------:
Ok to proceed with the clone? (yes/no):
## Uninstall
Uninstall by removing the two `rpi-clone` scripts that were downloaded:
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/sbin/rpi-clone*
If you installed manually by cloning this GitHub project (instead of the `curl | sudo bash` method), delete the clone as well.
## Author
Original author: Bill Wilson (billw--at--gkrellm.net)