Preparing USB Install Media

This process applies to the installation of GGC software images for the following devices:

• GGC servers
• GGC routers (Google provided and managed networking devices)

Requirements

• USB removable media device. Sizes from 2GB to 16GB are supported
• A PC or laptop
• Software for flashing the install image onto the USB media

If you’re reinstalling a GGC server you can find the latest setup image in the ISP Portal. The GGC server installation image can be re-used for multiple installations.

The image for GGC routers is provided by GGC Support and is tailor-made for each specific device.

This process wipes all existing data from the USB stick.

Create the USB boot stick on Windows

Windows 10 has a built in feature for mounting image files. This is incompatible with GGC install images and will not work.

The instructions below use Win32DiskImager, a free third-party tool for burning images onto USB media. 

Note: Google isn't responsible for the behaviour of 3rd party software such as Win32DiskImager

1. Download the latest version of Win32DiskImager.
2. Complete the Win32DiskImager install process.
3. Insert the USB stick. Wait until all appropriate drivers are installed, if necessary.
4. Run Win32DiskImager.
5. Select the downloaded image file.
6. Select the USB drive as the device.
7. Select "Write".
8. Wait for Win32DiskImager to complete, and remove the USB stick.

Create the USB boot stick on Mac

1. Open a terminal.
2. Insert the USB stick. A new device (for example, /dev/disk2s1) will appear.
3. Enter this command to check if a partition on the device is mounted:
   
   $ df -h
Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk1     112Gi   33Gi   78Gi    30%    /
devfs          203Ki  203Ki    0Bi   100%    /dev
map auto.auto    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%    /auto
map auto.home    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%    /home
map -hosts       0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%    /net
/dev/disk2s1     7.5Gi  1.5Gi  6.0Gi  21%    /Volumes/Cruzer
4. Unmount the USB stick:
   
   $ diskutil umount /Volumes/Cruzer
Volume Cruzer on disk2s1 unmounted
    
5. Verify it is no longer listed:
   
   $ df -h
Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk1     112Gi   33Gi   78Gi    30%    /
devfs          201Ki  201Ki    0Bi   100%    /dev
map auto.auto    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%    /auto
map auto.home    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%    /home
map -hosts       0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%    /net
    
6. This command creates the bootable USB stick. It will ask for your password, and then copy the image to the USB stick.In this example the USB stick is device /dev/disk2.
   
   $ sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded/image.img of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m
    

7. After this command has completed, the USB stick can be removed.

Create the USB boot stick on Linux

1. Open a terminal.

2. Insert the USB stick. A new device will appear (for example, /dev/sdb). Check the device name using dmesg:

   $ dmesg
usb 1-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
scsi7 : usb-storage 1-4:1.0
scsi 7:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Kingston DataTraveler G3  1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] 7567964 512-byte logical blocks: (3.87 GB/3.60 GiB)
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sdb: sdb1
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
   
   In this example, the USB device is /dev/sdb but this may vary on your system.

3. Make sure no partition on this device is mounted by entering  the command  "mount | grep /dev/sdb". It should not return any output. If it does, unmount the partition(s). For example:

   $ mount | grep /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb1 on /media/DEBIAN_LIVE type vfat

   In this example, the partition /dev/sdb1 is mounted. To unmount the partition, enter this command:

   $ sudo umount /dev/sdb1

   Followed by this  command:
   
   $ mount | grep /dev/sdb
   
   It should return no output, meaning no partition on this device is mounted.

4.  Enter this command to create the bootable USB stick. In this example, the USB stick is device /dev/sdb:
    

   $ sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded/image.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1M

5. After this command has completed, you can remove the USB stick.