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Ventoy Persistence Plugin
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Many distros (like Ubuntu/MX/LinuxMint ...) provide feature for persistence. This allows saving any changes you make to the
How to use
live system, so that they are still present the next time you boot to it. In normal case, we create a separate partition to do this
Get Started which is not so flexible.
Linux GUI -- GTK/QT
Now Ventoy brings a new feature here. You have no need to create any partition, no need to add persistent boot parameter.
Linux GUI -- WebUI
Just put a persistence data file in the 1st partition and tell Ventoy by the json configuration, and that's all.
Ventoy LiveCD
About Secure Boot You can put many different data files for different iso files at a time. You can also share a data file between different iso files
Memdisk Mode as long as it can be supported by the distros. Even you can specify more than one data files to an iso file, Ventoy will provide
TreeView Mode a menu to choose before boot.
IA32 UEFI Support
ARM64 UEFI Support 1. Supported Distros
MIPS64 UEFI Support
Ventoy Search Arch/Ubuntu and those distros based on them. Tested list: (Updating)
Configuration
About OpenWrt Distros Tested ISO Label Notes
About WIMBOOT Mode Arch Linux archlinux-2021.03.01-x86_64.iso vtoycow Arch/ArchMan/ArchBang/ArchLabs/BlackArch... are also
When Ventoy2Disk.exe supported.
Failed To Install
When Ventoy2Disk.exe Ubuntu ubuntu-20.04-desktop-amd64.iso casper-rw
Failed To Update MX Linux MX-19.1_x64.iso MX-Persist
About the Github CI
release LinuxMint linuxmint-19.3-xfce-64bit.iso casper-rw
About elementary OS elementaryos-5.1-stable.20200405.iso casper-rw
FydeOS/CloudReady
Inject files to Linux Live OS Zorin Zorin-OS-15.1-Core-64-bit-r2.iso casper-rw

Replace ISO boot menu Kaspersky Rescue krd18.iso casper-rw

background Disk
About VentoyAutoRun.bat
Kali kali-linux-2020.2-live-amd64.iso persistence Need -c persistence.conf option. And use Live USB
About file checksum
Persistence boot option.
How Ventoy works CloneZilla clonezilla-live-20200703-focal-amd64.iso persistence Need -c persistence.conf option
Ventoy Composition Fedora Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-33-1.2.iso vtoycow Need to add selinux=0 in the boot option
Disk Layout In MBR
Disk Layout In GPT
2. Json Configuration
Ventoy MBR & GPT
About Legacy BIOS A persistence array is defined to describe the configuration in /ventoy/ventoy.json .
Limitation
About Fuzzy Screen for {
WinPE "persistence": [
{
Ventoy Plugin "image": "/ISO/MX-19.1_x64.iso",
"backend": "/persistence/MX-19.1_x64.dat"
Plugin Entrypoint
},
Multi-Mode Option {
About Path Matching "image": "/ISO/ubuntu-20.04-desktop-amd64.iso",
Global Control Plugin "backend": [
"/persistence/ubuntu_20.04_1.dat",
Image List Plugin "/persistence/ubuntu_20.04_2.dat",
Theme Plugin "/persistence/ubuntu_20.04_3.dat"
Menu Class Plugin ],
"autosel": 2
Menu Alias Plugin
},
Menu Tip Plugin {
Menu Extension "image": "/linuxmint-19.3-xfce-64bit.iso",
Plugin "backend": "/persistence/linuxmint_19.03.dat",
Auto Installation "autosel": 1
Plugin }
]
Injection Plugin
}
Persistence Plugin
Wimboot Plugin
Windows Vhdboot Key Type Description
Plugin image STRING The full path of the iso file. This option supports fuzzy matching, please refer About Path
Linux vDisk boot Matching
Plugin
backend STRING or ARRAY The persistence backend image file path for the iso file. Can be a single string or string array.
Auto Memdisk Plugin
Boot Conf Replace autosel INTEGER Optional. If you set it, that means you auto select the corresponding option in the prompt menu.
Plugin And the prompt menu will NOT be shown.
Driver Update Disk 0: boot without persistence backend image file
Plugin 1: boot with the 1st persistence backend image file
Password Plugin 2: boot with the 2nd persistence backend image file
......
Ventoy Compatible
Ventoy information format 3. Multi-Mode
How information passed to
OS Supported. You can set different configurations for different BIOS mode. Please refer Multi-Mode Option for details.
How to mount the iso file
How to mark as Ventoy 4. Backend Image File
Compatible
The backend image file is a disk image with a label. You can directly download the pre-created image files or create it by yourself.
Miscellaneous
Download pre-created
Ventoy License
You can download pre-created image files from https://github.com/ventoy/backend/releases

Create by yourself
 If you don't want to use the pre-created file and want to create it by yourself. I have provided a CreatePersistentImg.sh script here.
Download it and just run sudo sh CreatePersistentImg.sh in the linux shell, by default a persistence.dat file will be created with
size=1GB fs=ext4 label=casper-rw.

sh CreatePersistentImg.sh [ -s SIZE_IN_MB ] [ -t FSTYPE ] [ -l LABEL ] [ -c CFG ] for example:

sh CreatePersistentImg.sh ----> persistence.dat in 1GB size and ext4 filesystem and casper-rw label
sh CreatePersistentImg.sh -l MX-Persist ----> persistence.dat in 1GB size and ext4 filesystem and MX-Persist label
sh CreatePersistentImg.sh -s 2048 ----> persistence.dat in 2GB size and ext4 filesystem and casper-rw label
sh CreatePersistentImg.sh -s 4096 -t xfs ----> persistence.dat in 4GB size and xfs filesystem (ext2/3/4 xfs are sup

sh CreatePersistentImg.sh -l persistence -c persistence.conf ----> persistence.dat in 1GB size and ext4 filesystem an
persistence.conf file inside the persistence.dat. The file only has 1 line "/ union". Some distros have this requiremen

1. When creating the image file and copy to USB, take care about the buffer. (use sync to flush the data to the disk)
2. Different distros use different Labels by default, for example ubuntu use casper-rw and MX Linux use MX-Persist, you can use -
l to set it
3. The backend image file must be put in the first partition. It can be in the root directory or any subdirectory.
4. Once you have made a backend image file, you can compress and save it as a template in your computer (very small after
compressed).

5. Extend persistent dat file

Sometimes, you may find that the persistence space is insufficient after a period of use.
Of course you can use a new bigger persistence dat file, but you need to backup and restore your old data.
Here I provide ExtendPersistentImg.sh script for you to nondestructively extend the persistent dat file. Just download and run it in a linux
shell as follows:

sudo sh ExtendPersistentImg.sh datfile extend_size_mb

For example:
sudo sh ExtendPersistentImg.sh persistent.dat 2048
That means extend persistent.dat by 2048MB (+2GB), if the old size is 1GB, then it will grow to 3GB after you extend it

6. Shrink persistent dat file (1.0.53+)

This case is not very common. Assume that you created a very big persistence dat file at first and want to nondestructively shrink it now.
You can give a negative number to ExtendPersistentImg.sh as follows:

sudo sh ExtendPersistentImg.sh persistent.dat -2048

That means reduce persistent.dat by 2048MB (-2GB), if the old size is 8GB, then it will reduce to 6GB after you shrink

1. Only dat file in ext4 filesystem is supported. XFS is not supported because XFS filesystem can not be nondestructively
shrinked.
2. You must make sure that after shrink the dat file can still hold all the files inside it.

7. Prompt Before Boot (1.0.12+)

When you boot an iso file with persistence config, a prompt will be shown. You can choose whether to use the persistence image and which
image to use for this time.

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