Simplest option to backup- set restore point- for minimal Centos install

eco_bach · 12-06-2016, 06:29 AM

Hi
Experiencing some strange voodoo with a recent Centos 7 + MATE install. I'm pretty sure the issues(Houdini doesn't launch anymore, strange behavior in installing plugins etc) are driver related and want to 'roll back' to an earlier version.
However I didn't create any backup or restore point.
Can any linux gurus suggest the best method for creating backups or restore points of just the system + any drivers installed?

My plan now is to start from scratch and reformat my SSD, do a complete reinstall. There goes another weekend!
Also was wondering, are other flavors of linux equally sensitive to driver related issues?

Perhaps switch to Ubuntu, Fedora, or even downgrade to Centos 6 from 7?
Any feedback appreciated!

Madhu Desai · 12-06-2016, 07:29 AM

I use fsarchiver for creating backups before any major changes I do to my CentOS 7 box. The advantage of fsarchiver is, its file based. So it can be restored on any partition which has a different size and it can be restored on a different file-system (ex: from xfs to ext4 etc).

I have this partition configuration:

Code:

# df -h /boot/efi / /home
Filesystem           Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1            500M   34M  466M   7% /boot/efi
/dev/mapper/vol-svr   20G  4.5G   16G  23% /
/dev/mapper/vol-hom  150G  689M  150G   1% /home

These are the commands I use to backup,view and restore partitions.

Code:

fsarchiver savefs -A -v -j4 -o cent-2016120601.fsa /dev/sda1 /dev/vol/svr /dev/vol/hom
fsarchiver archinfo cent-2016120601.fsa
fsarchiver restfs -v cent-2016120601.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1 id=1,dest=/dev/vol/svr id=2,dest=/dev/vol/hom

You can get latest fsarchiver compiled rpm for CentOS 7 from here (Scroll to bottom of page).

If there are any other good methods, I too am interested to know.

syg00 · 12-06-2016, 06:12 PM

fsarchiver is good, but overkill for this.
snapshot was invented for this - in fact Centos should have a package that does a snap automagically before a yum/dnf update.

Snaps are good in that they are CoW and so consume space only when there are differences. Can be thrown away when the updated system has been verified, or used as a (full) rollback if there are problems. I use btrfs, but LVM has had a similar though slightly different implementation - usually the best option for a standard RH/CentOS install.
Requires some housekeeping else they consume (all) your space as differences accumulate (in all snaps taken) over time - pretty minimal effort though.

THE greatest thing since sliced bread IMHO.

Madhu Desai · 12-07-2016, 04:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00

fsarchiver is good, but overkill for this.
snapshot was invented for this - in fact Centos should have a package that does a snap automagically before a yum/dnf update.

Snaps are good in that they are CoW and so consume space only when there are differences. Can be thrown away when the updated system has been verified, or used as a (full) rollback if there are problems. I use btrfs, but LVM has had a similar though slightly different implementation - usually the best option for a standard RH/CentOS install.
Requires some housekeeping else they consume (all) your space as differences accumulate (in all snaps taken) over time - pretty minimal effort though.

THE greatest thing since sliced bread IMHO.

Thanks. I tried LVM snapshot in VirtualBox, and it turned out to be very good and very easy. I don't know why I never thought about LVM snapshots earlier.

Again Thanks.