I am having issues getting results on searches because I get a bunch of results for doing a many ISOs to one USB (like Ventoy). Though I do get some results for hardware devices that can clone one USB to one or more blank USBs. But those hardware devices sell for hundreds of dollars.

I have a periodic need to update around 17 bootable USB drives at work. The drives are burned from ISO files (PC repair tools) and need to be updated with updated versions of the ISO. Currently I have to start each one at a time and is annoying (not as bad as some sys admins out there needing to do hundreds of drives).

So I was wondering if anyone knows of FOSS (or even mostly FOSS) plans/instructions for making a one to many USB clone hardware device using RPi or similar (I have a RPi 5 and a Pico W atm)? If a purpose built hardware device isn’t around. Are there any FOSS software programs for Windows (my only real option at work) that can handle taking one ISO to burn onto many USBs? I am fine with it doing them one at a time if they are all plugged-in automatically or if it can do small groups of like four or five.

Just seems like out of all the different guides/plans/kits for things like RPi or similar-ish boards. That there would be something like those pricey one to many cloning devices. Thanks in advance to everyone that can point me to anything useful!

  • tofubl@discuss.tchncs.de
    5·
    3 months ago

    I have done a similar thing in the past, but to flash firmware onto any device with a certain USB descriptor that gets plugged in. It was a mess of USB hubs and cables, but it worked.

    What I did was write a udev rule that checks for the vendor and product id of a newly plugged in device and calls a script when there’s a match. The script then performs the flashing and logs the output.

    In your case:

    1. dd the source USB to a file (make sure the partition you’re dding is smalled than any target drive
    2. Udev rule according to your needs (all the same product or different drives?)
    3. Script that dds the file you created earlier back to the newly plugged in drive.

    Edit. Did this on a rpi3