BG-Rescue Linux

BG-Rescue Linux is a very small Linux distribution (download-size < 20MB) which is intended mainly for rescue purposes.

The system runs entirely in ram and can be booted either from usb-stick or cdrom. It can be booted either on BIOS or UEFI hardware. Besides i386 it also includes a 64bit Linux kernel generating the possibility to chroot into a 64bit (amd64) userspace environment. The system can serve as a full rescue / backup / restore system for Linux or Windows based computers or to facilitate the installation of a recent Debian oder Ubuntu Linux via debootstrap.

All the relevant major filesystems and many network cards are supported as well as mounting samba (cifs) and nfs shares over network. A wide range of disk- and filesystem utilities as well as strong compression tools are integrated, including a 64bit version of lrzip. A graphical frontend (ytree) is also included.

Supported Hardware:

• Block Devices
  • Multiple devices driver support (RAID and LVM)
  • Normal floppy disk
  • SCSI Disk / CD-Rom
  • Serial ATA and Parallel ATA
  • USB Mass Storage support

• Network devices
  • Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit)
  • Ethernet (1000 Mbit)
  • Ethernet (10000 Mbit)
  • USB network devices

• Console
  • VESA VGA graphics console 8bit
  • VGA Text console

• BUS / Ports
  • Keyboard support (generic / USB)
  • Parallel Port
  • PCI Express / PCI / ISA Bus
  • USB support (USB 4 / Thunderbolt, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, USB 1.1)

• ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface)

Included Software:

• LINUX-Kernel  5.8.9   (32bit & 64bit)
  
  
• musl libc (i386)  1.1.21
  
  
• BusyBox  1.31.1
  
  
• Filesystem-Tools
  • dosfstools  4.1
  • e2fsprogs  1.45.6
  • exfat-utils  1.3.0
  • fuse-exfat  1.3.0
  • ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs  2017.3.23
  
  
• Disk-Tools
  • base-installer  1.193    (pkgdetails)
  • debootstrap  1.0.123
  • fuse  2.9.9
  • gddrescue  1.25
  • gpart  0.3-6    (with Debian patches)
  • lila-mdev  20190718
  • LVM2  2.03.07
  • mdadm  4.1
  • ms-sys  2.6.0
  • parted  3.3
  • tphdisk
  • util-linux  2.34    (fdisk, sfdisk)
  
  
• Compression-Utilities
  • cabextract  1.9
  • lrzip  0.631    (32bit & 64bit)
  • tar  1.30
  • zip  3.0
  • ar, bzip2, cpio, dpkg, dpkg-deb, gzip, lzop, rpm, rpm2cpio, uncompress, unlzma, unzip and unxz are integrated in BusyBox
  
  
• Boot-Loaders
  • linld  0.97
  • lilo  24.2-5    (with Debian and Gentoo patches)
  • rEFInd  0.11.5
  • syslinux  6.04~git20190206.bf6db5b4    (with Debian patches)
  
  
• Network-Utilities
  • cmdftp  0.9.8
  • dropbear  2019.78    (client)
  • rsync  3.1.3
  
  
• Libraries
  • bzip2  1.0.8    (libbz2)
  • libaio  0.3.112    (needed for LVM2)
  • lzo  2.10    (liblzo2)
  • zlib  1.2.11.dfsg
  
  
• Graphical Frontend
  • ytree  2.02    (with netbsd-curses 5.9)
  
  
• Misc
  • regutils  0.15

Supported Filesystems: btrfs, exfat, ext4 (with ext2 / ext3), hfs, hfs+, iso9660, ntfs-3g (ntfs), tmpfs, udf, vfat (msdos), xfs

Network filesystems: cifs (samba / smbfs), nfs

Back to top

Download problems: "RIGHTCLICK" and "Save link as..."

Alternate download location: https://sourceforge.net/projects/bgrescuelinux/files/

For direct linking (of the current version) please use:

• http://www.giannone.ch/rescue/current/bgrescue.iso.xz

• Under Windows:
  • Download and unpack bgrescue-X.Y.Z.iso.xz using 7-zip
  • alternatively download and unzip bgrescue-X.Y.Z.iso.zip
  • Flash bgrescue-X.Y.Z.iso to your usb-stick using Win32 Disk Imager
  • On the first boot you are given the opportunity to expand the image to fill the whole usb-stick.

• Under Linux:
  • Download bgrescue-X.Y.Z.iso.xz
  • Flash your usb-stick using:    xzcat bgrescue-X.Y.Z.iso.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=1M
  • Please be sure to use the right device-name pointing to your stick (eg /dev/sdc).
  • If you provide a wrong name all data on your harddisk may be destroyed.
  • On the first boot you are given the opportunity to expand the image to fill the whole usb-stick.

• Under MacOS:
  • Download and unpack bgrescue-X.Y.Z.iso.xz using The Unarchiver
  • alternatively download and unzip bgrescue-X.Y.Z.iso.zip
  • Flash your usb-stick using:    sudo dd if=bgrescue-X.Y.Z.iso of=/dev/diskX bs=1m
  • Please be sure to use the right device-name pointing to your stick (eg /dev/disk2).
  • If you provide a wrong name all data on your harddisk may be destroyed.
  • On the first boot you are given the opportunity to expand the image to fill the whole usb-stick.

Installation on cdrom

Please replace X.Y.Z with the current version number (eg: 8.1.1)...

• To create a bootable cdrom you just have to burn bgrescue-X.Y.Z.iso onto an empty cdrom.

• Include more network devices
• Include userspace tools for brtfs, hfs/hfs+, xfs
• Maybe include wireless support in the distant future?!?
• Tell me...

• Linus Torwalds for inventing LINUX and distributing it under the terms of the GPL
• Christian Perle for Hal91 and for helping me with my first steps in rescue systems
• Tom Oehser for tomsrtbt and for writing the bzip2 kernel patch
• Christian Ludwig for updating and publishing the bzip2 kernel patch
• Erik Andersen and his team for BusyBox and uClibc
• Tom for helping me out with some great ideas and for finding cmdftp on the internet
• Henrik Carlqvist for writing ms-sys and for helping me with my compiling-problems
• Stephan Schulz for correcting a typo in welcome.txt
• Ralf Brinkmann for finding the smbclient-pipe patch on the internet
• Ed Clark for writing the Busybox-1.00-unzip patch
• Robert Hamersky for notifying me about the F-Prot > 4.5 problems
• Igor Pavlov for the LZMA SDK
• Matthias Kilian, Dave Cinege, David L. Parsley for inittar
• Ming-Ching Tiew for the LZMA kernel patches
• Con Kolivas for Long Range ZIP and for helping me with my compiling-problems
• Alain Rykaert for coming up with the idea of boot parameters

• Where can I find the kernel configuration file (.config)?

  The kernel configuration file is named kernel_config and can be found
  in the bgrescue-X.Y.Z-src.zip along all other BG-Rescue Linux related files.
  
  

• How can I transfer pipes through network?

  The program You are searching is netcat. It can be used to send almost
  anything directly over the network. To use it, You have first to configure
  Your network devices on both systems correctly. Then type:
  
  sender:   nc [IP of reciever] [port] < [input-file]
  reciever: nc -lp [port] > [output-file]
  
  An expample for copying a harddrive would be:
  sender:   dd if=/dev/hdX | gzip | nc 10.0.0.100 32767
  reciever: nc -lp 32767 | gunzip | dd of=/dev/hdX
  
  

• How can I setup a compile environment for BG-Rescue Linux?

  BG-Rescue Linux is compiled using a build-system built with buildroot and musl libc
  with several custom config files. In bgrescue-X.Y.Z-src.zip you will find the patches.
  
  

Another excellent mini distribution is maintained by Christian Perle - Hal91.

The ONE-DISK-LINUX of the ONE-DISK-LINUXes is maintained by Tom Oehser - tomsrtbt.

A really interesting article: How Linux Saved My Files and My Job - PDF-Version.

Please visit also our page at Sourceforge - BG-Rescue Linux.

Please visit also our page at Freecode - BG-Rescue Linux (stalled).