2022.April Dave Bechtel

HOWTO bare-metal backup/restore your Linux root partition
GOAL: Test your restores!

Before starting, edit BKPDEST.mrg and define where you want backup files/dirs to live.

First run bkpcrit script, then bkpsys-2fsarchive.  
NOTE: You need the fsarchiver package installed.

You can use the mkrestoredvdiso script to create a UDF ISO containing your
fsarchive backup and add a 2nd DVD Drive to the VM with the ISO mounted.

Now you can test your restore into a Virtualbox VM by setting it up the same
way (use EFI boot if you have it on the host but be aware that this probably
needs further testing) and give it at least 4GB of RAM if you're using
64-bit.  

PROTIP: Have a "super grub disc" ISO handy just in case you have trouble
booting the VM after restore.


RESTORING:

Boot the VM into a recovery environment like systemrescuecd and use
Midnight Commander or scp to copy the RESTORE-fsarchive-root script into the
VM to the /tmp directory.  Have your restore UDF ISO (which contains your
fsarchive backup file) mounted on the 2nd virtual DVD drive.

chmod +x the script, fdisk /dev/sda and setup your partitions appropriately 
and you should be able to restore the backup and boot from it.  

May seem complicated, but I've done dozens of P2V restores with these
home-grown scripts based on a recommendation from the Crunchbang forum back
in the day.

Dave


Utility ISOs:

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=systemrescue

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=supergrub

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=rescatux