image_writer_rs

Warning

WARNING WARNING WARNING

The code assumes:

• You run it on Linux
• The /dev/disk/by-id/ directory exists and is properly populated
• The /sys/block/ directory exists and is properly populated

Features

• Autodetect any writable USB mass storage with non-zero capacity, show choice when more than 1 detected.
• Show warning with exact detected device name and countdown before writing an image - you have 10 seconds to ^C if you change your mind.
• Warn if the disk image appears to not be bootable (missing 0x55AA signature in the first sector)
• Abort if (eventually decompressed) disk image is not a multiple of 512 bytes.
• Support various disk image types (extension is case-insensitive):
  • Uncompressed: .ISO, .FS, .IMG, .IMA, .DD, .BIN, .RAW
  • Compressed: .BZ2, .BZIP2, .GZ, .GZIP, .XZ, .LZMA, .PIXZ, .ZST, .ZSTD, .LZ4
• All images need to be in RAW format (after the eventual decompression).
• Write directly to the device, bypassing cache.
• Verify written data against the original image.

TODO

• Check if image fits on media.
• Optionally fix the secondary GPT partition table to end of written media (warning - will invalidate checksum as it must modify the primary GPT partition)
• Support VM partition images (like qcow2 or vmdk) - that is copy virtual disk to a physical one.