Hello again everyone. As I move through my first Home Lab set up listed here:
cpu- Ryzen 7 2700
cooler- modified MSI Frozr L (modified with noctua mount-post later?)
ram- Kingston KSM26ED8/16ME Server Premier unbuffered ECC 2666
mobo- ASRock Rack X470D4U
LSI 9260-8i with 4x 3TB Ironwolf Drives and a Samsung 883 DCT Series SSD
GPU- MSI GTX 1650 Super Gaming X (I will need code to unlock trans-code limit?)
2nd GPU GTX 710 EVGA 2GB
Drives- Samsung 860 Evo 1TB M.2 SATA, SATA 2.5 version same size, Seagate Firecuda 2.5in 2TB SHHD, and WD Blue 6TB 3.5in.
All housed in a Fractal Node 804 Case with some Noctua Fans.
I have installed proxmox and have the basics of what i need set up. I would lake to make a bootable copy of the entire drive to another partition on the drive. This is not really a back up but a safety as I make changes to networking, security and other additions where I’ll be altering how proxmox operates.
I performed the install of Proxmox with ZFS.
Can I do a mirrior of the drive in its entirety to the new partition of the same drive (I splt the 500 GB drive into two 250GB partitions) and then unmount it?
rpool is only one part and does not include BOOT or EFI Filesystem.
Should I use the fs1 option for zpool snapshot of just root? ie. zfs snapshot rpool/fs1@17sep2020? would this be sufficient if I lost the ability to boot proxmox and then had to do a clean install would “rollback” work.
I guess I have two main questions… How can I “back-up” or make a copy (if your more comfortable with that definition) of current Proxmox install and settings for drives samba shares etc? I can use a external usb drive, which I would like to have the option of.
This question is narrowed down by what files or directories are needed for a full backup that can be restored with a clean install?
If this is unclear I’d be happy to elaborate as needed to get some help on what commands I should use.
I documented all my program installs and commands I used as I dont not have them memorized ,because I am new to Linux and proxmox, it would be nice to have this set up to cut down on doing it over and over getting GPU pass throughs working and file system set up how I like it.
Heres what the drive partitions look like-
/dev/nvme0n1p1 34 2047 2014 1007K BIOS boot
/dev/nvme0n1p2 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p3 1050624 482344960 481294337 229.5G Solaris /usr & Apple ZFS
/dev/nvme0n1p4 482347008 976773134 494426127 235.8G Linux filesystem
Well I have googled-my-foo… Some guides and even manuals from oracle. I’m still not in that good of a position.
He’s my thinking and maybe theres a better option I can do.
1.) I want to back up the entire boot drive or files needed after a clean install to retain my gpu pass throughs, shares, and few creature comfort add-ins line monitoring software . I have a documented step by step process in a text file on notepad++, but still eats up some time and takes down my plex server (makes my wife angry). I am new to linux (less than a year dabbling) and Proxmox (last 3 to 4 weeks), and I’d like a easy restore option as I add in software, start using some networking tools, work with security, and anything else I can imagine to do, Including running different distros as VM’s to get a feel for the differences and how to use them effectively. VM’s already have backups but I want to start automating maintenance etc. I also have a GRID K2 I’d like to start playing with I would probably need a system on another drive for ESXi or Citrus? Not sure.
I just want a fall back spot for when I break everything. I’m sure I’ll make mistakes, but I’ll continue my Notes step’s I have taken (inputs and expected outputs etc.)
I’m thinking some kind of rsync with an external drive attached?
I have proxmox on a mirrored 1TD SSD’s. Maybe I can break the mirror some how (I’ve tried it doesn’t seem to like it very much-from what I read it wont break down the mirror without a copy still available and also errors bout having grub and boot partitions on two drives).
Either way I would appreciate some help. I know a lot of people are very knowledgeable here, I’m just trying to learn. Thank you guys and gals.
I think you would be best off seeing if Proxmox has a built in tool for backing up it’s root and boot partitions, because it should make any changes needed to grub etc so it can just work.
Next best might be just to save the config files/folders to a place you can overwrite them back onto a rebuilt array/install.
And easier way might be to use DD for a full copy of each drive.
But specifically to your question, with zfs, you technically can double up the mirror, so a two wide (1 deep) mirror becomes a 4 wide (1 deep) pool by using zpool attach on one, or each of the drives.
This will mean instead of 2 drives with a copy of the same data, you would have 4 drives.
Then you should be able to do zpool split and give it the old and new names, and it will split the pool, but the new pool would have a different name. The new pool also would not have the boot sections. Part of the boot section is a ram disk, that stores the info about your install, including the UUID and name, and location of your root filesystem.
When you split the pool, the filesystem gets new UUID, so even a copy of the boot sector would need playing with to get it working.
All that is to say, you would be better off using DD to clone each of the root drives, even to HDD’s, it would be easier to work with afterwards.
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Great, I saw the DD option. Dont know why I shied away I’ll revisit to google machine.
I see proxmox has a backup but from all I’ve read I have to have another node to do so. I sadly do not…I might soon, but I don’t have one right moew. lol
I appreciate the help.
I may have to move hypervisors anyways due to GRID K2 I picked up only seems to work properly very limited distros of citrex or ESXi - see https://youtu.be/ykb8u4oGyF0 three part series.
I know @wendell had a video, but he was working with the Firepro. I thought I might be able to get away with a newer Radion Pro WX…never mind I’m babbling.
I appreciate your help. Thank you. Backup or disaster recovery #1 goal before I move forward.
Well I bit the bullet dont know if this will work… I purchased 2 500GB ssd’s to match size of the 500GB sata m2, Im going to try a mirrored install across the three disks then remove from pool and deactivate it. See if that works how I want it to once I have everything installed.
I’ll post my findings after I’m done 