Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2012 23:24:24 +0100 From: Pawel Jakub Dawidek <pjd@FreeBSD.org> To: Nathan Wehr <gtolemans@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-geom@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Lost geli metadata Message-ID: <20120109222423.GA1801@garage.freebsd.pl> In-Reply-To: <CC52B291-1029-4152-96F1-0401A02DF3B2@gmail.com> References: <CC52B291-1029-4152-96F1-0401A02DF3B2@gmail.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
--SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Mon, Jan 09, 2012 at 10:52:24AM -0500, Nathan Wehr wrote: > I have FreeBSD 8.0 installed on a machine with geli encrypting one of the= hard drives. Most of what's on the drive I can live without, but there are= a few important items that, unfortunately, don't exist elsewhere. When I t= ry to attach the drive, I get the following message: >=20 > [root@baxter ~/]# geli attach -k /root/ad4.key /dev/ad4 > [root@baxter ~/]# Enter Passphrase: (I enter passphrase no problem, geli = seems to attach) >=20 > [root@baxter ~/]# mount /dev/ad4.eli /private > mount: /dev/ad4.eli : No such file or directory <-- This is the problem >=20 > The rest of this sad story is really just a long list of me making stupid= mistakes. Here's a bit of history that might be helpful: >=20 > Mistake #1: Store non-backedup data on a backup drive that's encrypted.= =20 >=20 > If I hadn't of made Mistake #1, losing all of my data would be far less h= eart-wrenching. However - and unfortunately - my mistakes do not end there.= To start out with, I took out the CD/DVD drive from the machine to install= it in a different one. After I did that, the drive label for the encrypted= drive changed from ad4 to ad2. And of course geli wouldn't attach the driv= e and so I tried to use glabel. Needless to say, glabel didn't work. After = that, I backed up the meta data (more like overwrote meta data that was alr= eady backed up when I originally encrypted the drive) that geli puts on the= drive and then try to restore it after I insert the CD/DVD drive.=20 >=20 > This didn't work, and with a little bit of research, I found out that bot= h geli and glabel both write data to the same place on the hard drive (the = last sector). Which means that the backed up meta data which is at /var/bac= kups/ad4.eli now contains data for glabel instead of geli. I read somewhere= that the meta data for geli contains key information which doesn't make se= nse to me because I have the key stored at /root/ad4.key. So, my question..= =2E Is there any hope at recovering the information on the drive? If so, ho= w? And, if not, why? The /root/ad4.key file contains only a key that is being used to decrypt the master key, which is stored in provider's last sector. Ok, first of all, when you attach ad4 and it asks you for a passphrase, it means that metadata is there. What is the output of: # geli dump /dev/ad4 | head and what is the output after attaching of: # diskinfo -v /dev/ad4.eli Also note that geli automatically creates metadata backup on 'geli init' and stores it in /var/backups/ directory. Can you take a look if you have files with .eli suffix on the machine you initialized geli for this disk? --=20 Pawel Jakub Dawidek http://www.wheelsystems.com FreeBSD committer http://www.FreeBSD.org Am I Evil? Yes, I Am! http://yomoli.com --SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.14 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAk8LaRcACgkQForvXbEpPzQjUACfVM5S7CuLrWAJr6NoQ5JOF7gM mE0AnjO9jLhwAbI+QdsCXlD0Zbdb0CUW =cSGV -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --SLDf9lqlvOQaIe6s--
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20120109222423.GA1801>