From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Fri Oct 4 22:39:35 2019 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.nyi.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2610:1c1:1:606c::19:1]) by mailman.nyi.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B43A213B7D5 for ; Fri, 4 Oct 2019 22:39:35 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kh@panix.com) Received: from mailbackend.panix.com (mailbackend.panix.com [166.84.1.89]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 46lPvB50rHz3yQK for ; Fri, 4 Oct 2019 22:39:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kh@panix.com) Received: from rain.home (pool-72-74-69-77.bstnma.fios.verizon.net [72.74.69.77]) by mailbackend.panix.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 46lPv91LSnz12mx for ; Fri, 4 Oct 2019 18:39:32 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Guides for ZFS Full backup to NFS drive and restore from NFS drive To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: From: Kurt Hackenberg Message-ID: <9177b014-9041-f51e-1856-b6dbdec4afc1@panix.com> Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 18:38:49 -0400 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Rspamd-Queue-Id: 46lPvB50rHz3yQK X-Spamd-Bar: ----- Authentication-Results: mx1.freebsd.org; dkim=none; dmarc=none; spf=pass (mx1.freebsd.org: domain of kh@panix.com designates 166.84.1.89 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=kh@panix.com X-Spamd-Result: default: False [-5.17 / 15.00]; ARC_NA(0.00)[]; RCVD_VIA_SMTP_AUTH(0.00)[]; NEURAL_HAM_MEDIUM(-1.00)[-1.000,0]; FROM_HAS_DN(0.00)[]; R_SPF_ALLOW(-0.20)[+ip4:166.84.0.0/16]; TO_MATCH_ENVRCPT_ALL(0.00)[]; MIME_GOOD(-0.10)[text/plain]; PREVIOUSLY_DELIVERED(0.00)[freebsd-questions@freebsd.org]; TO_DN_NONE(0.00)[]; RCPT_COUNT_ONE(0.00)[1]; NEURAL_HAM_LONG(-1.00)[-1.000,0]; DMARC_NA(0.00)[panix.com]; RCVD_IN_DNSWL_MED(-0.20)[89.1.84.166.list.dnswl.org : 127.0.5.2]; IP_SCORE(-2.67)[ip: (-8.33), ipnet: 166.84.0.0/16(-2.76), asn: 2033(-2.21), country: US(-0.05)]; FROM_EQ_ENVFROM(0.00)[]; R_DKIM_NA(0.00)[]; MIME_TRACE(0.00)[0:+]; ASN(0.00)[asn:2033, ipnet:166.84.0.0/16, country:US]; MID_RHS_MATCH_FROM(0.00)[]; RCVD_TLS_ALL(0.00)[]; RCVD_COUNT_TWO(0.00)[2] X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2019 22:39:35 -0000 On 2019-10-04 17:20, Alejandro Imass wrote: > Hi there FreeBSD folk! > > Are there any easy to follow guides to completely backup a FreeBSD system > to an NFS drive and then restore the complete system from the backup in the > NFS drive? > > I don't have much NFS expertise but it shouldn't be that complicated. > > I found this guide but not exactly what I'm looking for: > > https://www.dan.me.uk/blog/2012/08/05/full-system-backups-for-freebsd-systems-using-zfs/ > > Is there a utility or something to make this process less painful? Do you mean to recreate the file tree on the NFS server, by copying each FreeBSD file to an NFS file? That might not work perfectly. I believe NFS doesn't implement everything the FreeBSD filesystem does. It might not include sparse files, special files, extended file metadata (access control, "flags")... If you use ZFS, you probably should use its backup/restore mechanisms, as in that article. For good results, it probably does have to be that complicated. If you don't use ZFS, then I suggest that you look at the programs "dump" and "restore". They have man pages. The FreeBSD Handbook also has some information about backup/restore for non-ZFS: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/backup-basics.html And a chapter on ZFS: https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/zfs.html