Post disaster restore via bootable USB?

michaelrmgreen

michaelrmgreen

USB memory sticks are now available in sizes larger than my FreeBSD slice. This seems to offer the possibility of a total restore directly from a bootable USB stick. In other words I want to be able to plug the USB stick into a spare server, boot from it and have the backup restore to a fully working system, with minimal intervention.

Is this possible?

Has anybody actually done it, if you have how?
 
From a technical point of view this is feasible.

Personally, I lost any confidence in USB memory sticks, because mines are dying like flies at the wall. Perhaps, I got the monday ones, or I treat my sticks not very well.

I prepared one USB memory stick as a disaster startup drive. The actual backups are stored at external USB-HDDs, though. Otherwise, I use memory sticks only for transferring data that is triply-stored at other locations.

Best regards

Rolf
 
Hmm, worrying news there Rolf. Perhaps there are more reliable and durable breeds available. Anyone know for definite?

On reflection I suppose this kind of process may require booting from the USB stick to create the disk image, which isn't going to be convenient on a server, and might be impossible to do without user console intervention.
 
michaelrmgreen said:
USB memory sticks are now available in sizes larger than my FreeBSD slice. This seems to offer the possibility of a total restore directly from a bootable USB stick. In other words I want to be able to plug the USB stick into a spare server, boot from it and have the backup restore to a fully working system, with minimal intervention.

Is this possible?
Click to expand...

Sure, it's called a "bare-metal restore". It wouldn't even require much customization. Put the script in /etc/rc.local. Alternatives include an autologin from /etc/ttys, a cron(8) @reboot entry, or a sysinstall(8) script.

The storage doesn't need to be as big as the slice. Using dump(8) cuts it down to just occupied space, and gzip(1) usually compresses that down a lot more.

Has anybody actually done it, if you have how?
Click to expand...

I've thought about it, but the idea of a bootable disk that will happily overwrite current data with an old backup makes me a little queasy. Yes, it could have specific verification steps to prevent accidents. Still...
 
the idea of a bootable disk that will happily overwrite current data with an old >backup makes me a little queasy.
Click to expand...

Sage advice, if something can happen...

I think this idea is a non-starter.
 
michaelrmgreen said:
>the idea of a bootable disk that will happily overwrite current data with an old >backup makes me a little queasy.

Sage advice, if something can happen...

I think this idea is a non-starter.
Click to expand...

You could have it say "Please type the word 'wombat' followed by the first four digits of e to verify overwriting your disk."

In some environments, getting a restore going quickly would be worth it. Dump files on USB stick or external drive (or NAS) combined with mfsBSD aren't all that much harder. Maybe keep a cheat sheet of dump(8)/restore(8) options handy. That's how Backup Options For FreeBSD started.
 
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