Backup/Restore "Disaster Recover" Options Slipped into FreeNAS!

[DrKK]

Last night, a guy we see occasionally came into the #freenas channel on IRC. He asked, in the event of a total loss of his pool, and an existing backup somewhere, could he just one-click "restore" from his backup without a hassle?

I dutifully answered that as far as I knew, he could not, and that he'd have to recopy over the files on a new pool in the event of a disaster. Because, well, as of 9.3 Release, that's exactly what he would do.

Then Jordan chimed in, and began telling him about the "DR" (disaster recovery) options built into FreeNAS. Wait, what? Well, it turns out that one of the software upgrades since the 9.3 release included a feature for disaster recovery. See the picture below.

Of course, I didn't know about it since:

• It's only accessible in the console menu (which no one pays attention to) (EDIT: Hugovsky, below, points out that there is a system->advanced->backup, which appears to be the GUI entry for this.)
  
• It's got a documentation footprint of about 0.000019 (I assume a fix is in progress for this)
  
• Nobody released any hard-to-miss announcement (at least not that I saw) for this interesting feature.

But anyway, we spoke for a few minutes yesterday in IRC, and Jordan provided the following information that is relevant:

• This backup includes the pool, the configuration files, and GEOM. The whole thing. It's not a files backup, it's not a pool backup (like zfs send would be), it's the entire FreeNAS appliance that you have going, including the files and configuration and everything else. It literally will restore your entire FreeNAS as it currently exists, from soup to nuts.
  
• This is an SSH-based solution; your target box must simply have an SSH daemon listening, and the appropriate amount of space for the backup. Nothing. Else. Is. Required.
  
• Jordan says that literally, if you have a Windows box, and sufficient space, you just turn on an ssh server and go ahead and back the FreeNAS up to that. Of course that's mostly academic, since your Windows box is not likely to have enough space...
  
• There is no rsync, or ZFS-related element to this. It is some kind of roll-your-own idea they had.
• You do not interact with this backup. It is totally static blob, related to no other software or process. You do not increment it, etc, you cannot do anything except allow the backup to sit like Buddha until/unless you need a restore to your FreeNAS.
  
• Restore reverses the process.

You will see when you go to "create backup" in the console menu, you will be asked a number of things:

• IP address to push to
• login credentials
• (it appears that certificate based login is possible)
• whether or not you want compression
• what the destination directory is
• etc

Anyway, I haven't tried it, but it's there. If someone uses it, let the rest of us know what you think.

 

[Ericloewe]

Ah, now it all makes sense.

 

[DrKK]

Ah, now it all makes sense.

What makes sense?

 

[gpsguy]

About a week ago, I asked (in two different threads) whether anyone had used and/or tested it (other than iXsystems). I also pointed someone to the limited docs for it. I'd seen it mentioned by jkh in a thread about 10 days ago.

 

[hugovsky]

Is this the same that is in system->advanced-> backup?

 

[DrKK]

Is this the same that is in system->advanced-> backup?

Well look at that!

Sure looks the same---it's the same dialog questions.

Good pickup.

I'll edit my original post.

 

[gpsguy]

You gotta start watching Section "1.2 What’s New Since 9.3-RELEASE" of the manual. These items have been documented since at least Feb 5th.

• The “Create backup” and “Restore from a backup” options have been added to the FreeNAS® console setup
menu shown in Figure 3a.

• A “Backup” button has been added to System →Advanced.

I've been generating a PDF (via script) for my reference about once a week. If you'd like a PDF generated today, see the link in my signature.

 

[DrKK]

You gotta start watching Section "1.2 What’s New Since 9.3-RELEASE" of the manual. These items have been documented since at least Feb 5th.

• The “Create backup” and “Restore from a backup” options have been added to the FreeNAS® console setup
menu shown in Figure 3a.

• A “Backup” button has been added to System →Advanced.

I've been generating a PDF (via script) for my reference about once a week. If you'd like a PDF generated today, see the link in my signature.

I realize all of that. But this does precious little to explain what it does. It could mean it backs up the configuration or something. This is a brand new feature that does something major. That's all I'm saying, a little more on it would have been nice, so it wouldn't be so easily ignored.

 

[DrKK]

I'm not trying to be critical or anything, I'm just saying, the roll-out of this feature was a bit low profile.

 

[Ericloewe]

What makes sense?

The mysterious new "backup" feature. I was wondering what it was and the docs didn't help much...

 

[2fi5ban]

You gotta start watching Section "1.2 What’s New Since 9.3-RELEASE" of the manual. These items have been documented since at least Feb 5th.

• The “Create backup” and “Restore from a backup” options have been added to the FreeNAS® console setup
menu shown in Figure 3a.

• A “Backup” button has been added to System →Advanced.

I've been generating a PDF (via script) for my reference about once a week. If you'd like a PDF generated today, see the link in my signature.

would you be willing to share that script please. That is great so if not online have the pdf to use thanks
fi5ban

 

[gpsguy]

Please read this thread to understand what you need: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/new-format-for-publishing-docs.23557/

I participated in the thread and explained how I created my VM for the build environment. My script runs the commands needed to create the PDF and then FTP's it to my website. The script takes about 6 minutes to create and upload a PDF. I'll send you my simple script in about 12 hours.

 

[gpsguy]

By the way an upcoming SU will include a HTML version of the manual and add a tab to access it. I still prefer PDF and will continue my process.


Sent from my phone

 

[MrToddsFriends]

Well, it turns out that one of the software upgrades since the 9.3 release included a feature for disaster recovery.

Before having used this backup procedure for the first time (yes, kind of noob questions here): Is there a way to automate this, for example once per week?

At least for testing and deciding which backup plan is the most suitable for me I'm in the comfortable situation to chose between my old Synology box and my Windows client station as backup target (which has enough disk space, so such a scenario isn't entirely academic). For the latter option the Cygwin OpenSSH port looks like a viable way to me or did I miss something?


MrToddsFriends

 

[Ericloewe]

It's not meant to be automated. It's a pure brute force backup for one off usage.

 

[Rosin0416]

Hello

I am newby in freenas and am interested to use this static backup. But I do not know how. Can anyone help me please?
I want to create a backup (config and pool) to a directory on my computer (windows 7). (I have enough space on my PC)
In System / advanced / backup:
_IP Address => IP address of my PC windows 7
_user Name => user freenas? Windows user?
_password => password user freenas? Windows user password?
_remote directory => ???

Do I enable and configure a service on freenas? SSH? FTP?
What should I do on the lcient (windows 7 here)?

Thanks
Regards

 

[melloa]

Just food for though: Why back-up data from a system running ZFS on Windows? If your FreeNAS box is, at least close, to recommended specs, your data would be safer there. Do back-up your config in case you need to reinstall.

The manual has instructions on how to run it here: http://doc.freenas.org/9.10/system.html#advanced. I've never used it but would suspect it would require ssh and, probably, other services running on your windows.

 

[Ericloewe]

http://doc.freenas.org/9.10/system.html#advanced

Note that it works with SSH, so the remote system needs some sort of Unix shell.

 

[Rosin0416]

Thanks.
Indeed indications are more complete on the 9.10 as 9.3.
But it is not detailed enough for my skills.
This back up is in addition (in case). I test different solution before putting my nas in production.
And I still do not know what backup strategy to ensure data integrity.
I want a solution that I master.
I tried using rsync but I can not quite to re-import my data of my pool
Regards