# formating server



## hamba (Mar 18, 2009)

Hi

I am going to reinstall FreeBSD on my file server but before I start I would like to get your input on some things.
The server is getting really unstable, mostly because I messed around in places where I knew I wasn't suppose to be in, any ways, its time to clean it.

What I would like to do is make a backup of all the user accounts and then restore them once the new system is back up and running.
I also have a nice big zfs pool and this is where I'm a little worried. Will a simple zpool export, format system, zpool import work without loosing any of the data that is in the pool as well as the zfs settings I've made?

Currently I have the system running on ufs but /usr/home and /samba are on the zfs pool, so by unmounting the zfs pool there is only one users home dir (me) that was created when I first build the server.

The whole procedure I was thinking of doing goes as follows

```
cp /etc/passwd
cp /etc/master.passwd
cp /etc/group
zpool export
Format server
zpool import
cp back passwd, master.passwd and group
pwd_mkdb -p /etc/passwd
reboot
```

I'm not to worried about the user accounts, I can manually recreate them if need be but its very important that I do not loose the zpool or any of the data that's on the 4 drives.

Any insight or ideas are welcome

Thanks
hamba


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## pablo (Mar 19, 2009)

For Samba /usr/local/etc/smb.conf. And /etc/krb5.conf if your Samba AD attached.


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## hamba (Mar 20, 2009)

Hi

Thanks for the reply.
I am aware of all the conf files that I have to make a backup as well. There are a few of them.

My main concern is about the zfs pool that I have I can't afford to loose any of the data on it, the other thing that I'm a little worried about is how does zfs handle device changes, all the drives are sata drives and from what I've seen they like to get renamed after a format.


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