# Post disaster restore via bootable USB?



## michaelrmgreen (Jun 3, 2011)

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?


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## Anonymous (Jun 3, 2011)

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


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## michaelrmgreen (Jun 3, 2011)

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.


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## wblock@ (Jun 3, 2011)

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?



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?



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...


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## michaelrmgreen (Jun 3, 2011)

> 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.


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## wblock@ (Jun 3, 2011)

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.



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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## michaelrmgreen (Jun 3, 2011)

> mfsBSD


Hello, that looks interesting, why do I never know about these things? Gah.


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