How to Backup Plan
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I haven't had time to take on an upgrade, for awhile so I'm still on pfSense 2.4.5-RELEASE-p1, and I'm now looking at upgrading to version 2.5.2.
My big stumbling block (and is the reason I haven't taken on an upgrade so far) is a Backup Plan as described in the update notes.
It's great if the instance is virtual, just take a snapshot before upgrade and roll back, but that option is not available to me on a physical machine.
If something goes really bad how do I get back to my old version and packages. It seems as if the old installer and packages are no longer available.
I kept a copy of my 2.4.5-P1 install image, and can easily/will back up my config, but if things really go south, I'm in big $#!T because I can't get the packages back.
It seems as if pfBlockerNG isn't even available any more let alone 2.1.4_22 that I'm currently running. I'm expecting this might mean a lot of work which I don't have time for at the moment.
Is there a way to make a disk image to a USB drive so that at least I can easily roll things back.
Any suggestions/advice much appreciated.
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@guardian said in How to Backup Plan:
It seems as if pfBlockerNG isn't even available any more let alone 2.1.4_22 that I'm currently running.
Not sure where you got that from. Both 2.1.4_26 and 3.0.0_16 are available.
If you're running on a PC, you could always image the system disk. If you're running a Netgate ARM appliance then I'm not sure how you wold image that.
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I pulled the HD and did a fresh install on a new HD and restored my config.
This takes a bit longer, but has a 100% recovery chance.Don't forget to restart before you change anything... a restart will not break anything, it just applies the things that do.
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I'm wondering if there are any FreeBSD Gurus that can give me some hints on backing up to a USB drive with command line tools. If possible I'd rather not have to crack open the box if I can avoid it.
My firewall has a 120GB mSATA drive, but du -h shows only 3.9 GB used. What are the odds of me being able to use a USB install disk, boot into rescue mode and backup everything on unused space on the install drive. If I put the install on a 32GB USB drive, as long as I can partition and mount the unused space.
What FreeBSD Tools can I use to reliably backup/restore only the used data?
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I cannot help with the actual question, but if you end up wiping and installing do ZFS then it is easier next time.
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@andyrh said in How to Backup Plan:
I cannot help with the actual question, but if you end up wiping and installing do ZFS then it is easier next time.
I was thinking about that... That's the way TrueNAS is set up, but that's on an i7 with 32GB of RAM. I'm wondering how ZFS will work out on a 4GB J1900.... not exactly a powerhouse.
I'd be interested in hearing peoples thoughts/experiences.
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I have ZFS on a gen 1 i3 with 8gb ram. When I switched I did not see any CPU or RAM difference.
