Should I use a CoW filesystem on my PC if I only wanted snapshot capabilities ? Post: 303045040

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Top Forums UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers Should I use a CoW filesystem on my PC if I only wanted snapshot capabilities ? Post 303045040 by sreyan32 on Wednesday 11th of March 2020 05:30:17 AM

03-11-2020

Registered User

Quote:

Originally Posted by stomp

Encryption makes the backup task more difficult.

Unfortunately I need it, I can't avoid it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stomp

Since you're a beginner, a CloneZilla can be a fallback solution until you're famillar enough with your linux os. With CloneZilla you can save and restore the os partition without knowing very much about linux.

Okay Clonezilla is not an option for me. Simply because I don't have that much of space to spare. It seems I am not getting the answer that I want because I am not asking the right questions.

So let me apologize for that, and let me ask if the following workflow is possible on Linux.

I have a single 1 TB SATA hard disk.
I will be using an encrypted LVM with ext4 formatting.
Now lets say before an update or a dist-upgrade I take a snapshot of the root partition and store that snapshot in the root partition itself.
The upgrade or update fails or is causing problems, and the system is no longer bootable to my desktop.
I boot into a live CD.
Mount my encrypted partitions, and /proc, /sys and /dev from the live CD.
Chroot into my system.
Find the saved snapshot.
Revert it.
Exit from Live CD environment and boot back to the reverted system.

Main Challenges:

Will the backup process work ?
Will the Live CD of my OS contain CLI tools to decrypt encrypted partitions ?

As you can see, I cannot forego full-disk encryption nor do I have that much space or time for a full cold boot snapshot of a partition.

So is the above workflow possible ?

sreyan32

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LEARN ABOUT NETBSD

fssconfig

FSSCONFIG(8)						    BSD System Manager's Manual 					      FSSCONFIG(8)

NAME

     fssconfig -- configure file system snapshot devices

SYNOPSIS

     fssconfig [-cxv] device path backup [cluster [size]]
     fssconfig -u [-v] device
     fssconfig -l [-v] [device]

DESCRIPTION

     The fssconfig command configures file system snapshot pseudo disk devices.  It will associate the file system snapshot disk device with a
     snapshot of path allowing the latter to be accessed as though it were a disk.

     If backup resides on the snapshotted file system a persistent snapshot will be created.  This snapshot is active until backup is unlinked.
     This snapshot mode is only supported for ffs files systems.

     Otherwise data written through the path will be saved in backup.  If backup is a regular file, it will be created with length size.  Default
     size is the size of path.	Data is saved to backup in units of cluster bytes.

     Options indicate an action to be performed:

     -c   Configures the device.  If successful, references to device will access the contents of path at the time the snapshot was taken.  If
	  backup is a directory, a temporary file will be created in this directory.  This file will be unlinked on exit.

     -l   List the snapshot devices and indicate which ones are in use.  If a specific device is given, then only that will be described.

     -u   Unconfigures the device.

     -v   Be more verbose listing the snapshot devices.

     -x   Unlink backup after the device is configured.

     If no action option is given, -c is assumed.

FILES

     /dev/rfss?
     /dev/fss?

EXAMPLES

	   fssconfig fss0 /usr /tmp/back

     Configures the snapshot device fss0 for a snapshot of the /usr file system.  Data written through /usr will be backed up in /tmp/back.

	   fssconfig fss1 / /dev/rsd0e 8192

     Configures the snapshot device fss1 for a snapshot of the / file system.  Data written through / will be backed up in /dev/rsd0e.	The backup
     will take place in units of 8192 bytes.

	   fssconfig -u fss0

     Unconfigures the fss0 device.

SEE ALSO

     opendisk(3), fss(4), mount(8), umount(8)

HISTORY

     The fssconfig command appeared in NetBSD 2.0.

BSD
								   June 11, 2012							       BSD