ClearOS USB Installer
This guide will help you burn your ClearOS 7 (all versions) ISO to USB. If you are using an older version of ClearOS or the ClearOS 6.7.0 ISO, please use this guide. This guide is also applicable for the 6.6.1 ISO but not for 6.7.0.
Requirements
You will need a system or program that has the ability raw write the ISO to USB. For Linux and Mac, the 'dd' program is perfect for the task and already exists on your install.
Download the ISO for ClearOS.
Open a terminal program. Plug in the USB device and determine the raw name for the disk.
Optional Security Recommendation
To validate you downloaded the right thing and that it valid and not compromised, you can and should run an SHA256 sum on the file. What that means is that we've included in the ISO directory a text file that has some information about the ISOs we have provided. This file can be accessed or listed by opening it with notepad or concatenated at command prompt to see its contents. For example:
DAVIDs-MBP-5:~ dloper$ cat ~/Downloads/ClearOS-7.2.0.168346-x86_64-CHECKSUM # The image checksum(s) are generated with sha256sum. a8767efc63ad3a118de3459f94ef20aee967ef4a5487af6b11eb111b150ba6f4 *ClearOS-DVD-x86_64-7.2.0.168346.iso 5a953cb34a8a9f5f9cd9baf4fead46c89a72c5927f0627b2e86a69a23feecaa3 *ClearOS-netinst-x86_64-7.2.0.168346.iso
These 'codes' are nothing more than a mathematical sum of all the data bits of the ISO. The reason why we provide this is because you can use this number to validate whether or not the ISO we have produced matches the ISO you have in your Download folder. If you do not trust the checksum available in the same folder of the Download then you can ALSO validate it against the release notes for the version of ClearOS you are running.
Mac
Find the USB disk
To know exactly which partition is your USB, Launch the 'Terminal' program under the Utilities Folder under Applications. Run the following:
ls /dev/disk*
This will show your your listed drives. Insert the USB drive and run it again.
ls /dev/disk*
Here I can see that my disk is /dev/disk1. It may be /dev/disk2 or something completely different.
Davids-MacBook-Pro-2:Downloads dloper$ ls /dev/disk* /dev/disk0 /dev/disk0s1 /dev/disk0s2 /dev/disk0s3 Davids-MacBook-Pro-2:Downloads dloper$ ls /dev/disk* /dev/disk0 /dev/disk0s1 /dev/disk0s2 /dev/disk0s3 /dev/disk1
You can also validate the disk by running the following and verifying the size:
diskutil list
Again, it is really important that you identify your correct disk. If I do the dd command against /dev/disk0, I'll destroy my Mac's main drive.
Unmount the disk so we can raw write to it
When you insert your USB drive, your Mac will try to mount it. We need it unmounted before we can format and write our image to the drive. Under Applications, open the Utilities menu. Launch the 'Disk Utility' program and keep the 'Terminal' program.
In Disk Utilities, highlight any existing partitions under the main device and Unmount them using the button above.
Another way to unmount it from command line is to run the diskutil to unmount the name you discovered in the previous step. For example:
diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk2
Write the data to USB
Change directory (using the 'cd' command) to the location of your ClearOS ISO folder, for example (change 'myuser' to your user. If you need to see the list of users, type 'cd /Users/' and then hit tab twice.):
cd ~/Downloads/
Using the 'dd' command, write the ClearOS image to the USB drive (Change the ISO name to the one you downloaded and change the device name to the one you found on the list (ls /dev/disk*) earlier). You will also want to put an 'r' in front of the device type because it writes faster and more complete on Mac. DON'T COPY and PASTE HERE, structure the command properly. I'll give some examples:
Writes ClearOS Professional 6 to disk2
sudo dd if=clearos-professional-x86_64.iso of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=1024000
Writes ClearOS 7.2.0.168346 to disk3 sudo dd if=ClearOS-DVD-x86_64-7.2.0.168346.iso of=/dev/rdisk3 bs=1024000 Writes the current version of ClearOS 7 to disk 2 **
sudo dd if=ClearOS-DVD-x86_64-7.2.0.iso of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=1024000
You will be prompted to provide your password for your username to make this change since it has the potential of damaging your computer. If all goes well, you will have put the image to your USB. If you did it wrong and pushed the image to your Mac's hard drive, I'm sorry, I tried to warn you.
You will know that it is done when it gives your command prompt back.
Linux
The install process to USB is similar to that of the Mac. You can use 'wget' or 'curl -o' to download the package and then 'dd' it to your USB drive. When you insert the drive you can use the following to determine the correct drive:
fdisk -l | grep Disk
Once you know the drive you will use, you will reference it in the next command for the 'of' parameter.
dd if=clearos-professional-x86_64.iso of=/dev/devicename bs=1024000
Windows
You can use a program like WinDD or dd for Windows to write the file to USB.
Something like this…maybe?
dd if=clearos-professional-x86_64.iso of=\\.\Volume{6f41f4b2-d11a-11de-b318-001d4f88486c}
dd for Windows
Download and extract the dd zip file and then place the executable in your C:\Windows\ directory. Make sure that you insert the USB drive but close any applications that might open up the volume.
Open a command prompt (Start » Run » cmd)
In the command prompt, run the following to get a list of your drives:
dd --list
You should get an output such as this:
C:\Users\Username>dd --list rawwrite dd for windows version 0.5. Written by John NewbiginThis program is covered by the GPL. See copying.txt for details Win32 Available Volume Information \\.\Volume{19d85149-ddf1-11e2-9904-806e6f6e6963}\ link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume4 fixed media Mounted on \\.\d: \\.\Volume{4268772a-e552-11e5-868d-e89a8f45233b}\ link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume5 removeable media Mounted on \\.\f: \\.\Volume{19d85148-ddf1-11e2-9904-806e6f6e6963}\ link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume2 fixed media Mounted on \\.\c: \\.\Volume{19d85147-ddf1-11e2-9904-806e6f6e6963}\ link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume1 fixed media Not mounted \\.\Volume{9f0e9e5a-ddea-11e2-9d3a-e89a8f45233b}\ link to \\?\Device\SftVol fixed media Mounted on \\.\q: \\.\Volume{92aa90c6-ddf2-11e2-8556-806e6f6e6963}\ link to \\?\Device\CdRom0 CD-ROM Mounted on \\.\e: NT Block Device Objects \\?\Device\CdRom0 Virtual input devices /dev/zero (null data) /dev/random (pseudo-random data) - (standard input) Virtual output devices - (standard output)
In this case, my USB device is 'F' and the volume label is:
\\.\Volume{4268772a-e552-11e5-868d-e89a8f45233b}\
Then run the dd program to image the ISO image to the disk.
dd if=C:\Users\Username\Downloads\ClearOS-DVD-x86_64.iso of=\\.\Volume{4268772a-e552-11e5-868d-e89a8f45233b} bs=1M