HPR4231: Duplicating Multiple USB Flash Drives with DD and Tmux on FreeBSD

Pre-planning and creating your image:

1. Create your image with your preferred disk image creation tool. I used USB Image Tool to create an image from my "golden master" Windows 11 installation thumb drive A. USB Image Tool: https://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool

Prepare your Tmux session on your Linux or BSD-based system.

1. 'tmux new -s $sessionName' to create a new Tmux session window with a session name of your choice.
2. 'Ctrl-B-"' to create a horizontal split, putting one pane over the other.
3. 'Ctrl-B-%' to create a vertical split, putting one pane next to the other.
4. 'Ctrl-B-UpArrow' or 'Ctrl-B-DownArrow' to move to the pane you want to split if you split the window with a horizontal line.
5. 'Ctrl-B-LeftArrow' or 'Ctrl-B-RightArrow' to move to the pane you want to split if you split the window with a vertical line.

https://tmuxcheatsheet.com/

Duplicate 4 USB thumb drives from a disk image within your new, split-paned Tmux session:

• CHECK DMESG FOR THE CORRECT DEVICE NAME AND WRITE IT DOWN!!!
  • FreeBSD will show dmesg output on TTYv0, or you can use the dmesg command on Linux or BSD. You don't want to end up wiping your system drive!
• Within your Tmux session:
  • Pane 1: 'dd if=$diskImageName of=/dev/da0 bs=1M status=progress' to begin imaging USB thumb drive #1.
  • Pane 2: 'dd if=$diskImageName of=/dev/da1 bs=1M status=progress' to begin imaging USB thumb drive #2.
  • Pane 3: 'dd if=$diskImageName of=/dev/da2 bs=1M status=progress' to begin imaging USB thumb drive #3.
  • Pane 4: 'dd if=$diskImageName of=/dev/da3 bs=1M status=progress' to begin imaging USB thumb drive #4.
  • 'Ctrl-B-:' to call the Tmux command prompt, followed by 'setw synchronize-panes' to sync the 4 panes to your commands. The primary pane will be highlighted in red, and the secondary panes will copy whatever command it typed into that primary pane.
  • Hit Enter to begin the process on all 4 panes.
  • When the image finishes, you can remove the USB thumbs drives, pop in 4 more, hit the Up arrow on the primary pane to pull up the previous commands on their respective panes, and hit Enter. When in doubt, refer to Step 0!!
  • Repeat as needed.

If you need to de-synchronize your Tmux panes, just type 'Ctrl-:' to call the Tmux command prompt, followed by 'setw synchronize-panes' to toggle pane synchronization on and off (or you can use the up arrow at the Tmux command prompt to bring up that previously-typed command).

The faster your USB ports and USB thumb drives, the better!

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Ken Fallon (PA7KEN, G5KEN)

@hpr

Claudio describes his process for mass USB flash drive duplication with FreeBSD, tmux, and dd.

Today on the #HackerPublicRadio #Community #Podcast​

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