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#1 2020-09-22 22:06:25

nixer
Member
From: North Carolina, USA
Registered: 2016-11-30
Posts: 185  

refractasnapshot error

After ~6 years of using refracta-tools, I finally ran into the first problem creating a snapshot.  I do not know what to make of this:

The terminal output that displayed immediately after rsync copy completed:

sent 5,207,488,792 bytes  received 3,294,422 bytes  77,196,788.36 bytes/sec
total size is 5,193,829,718  speedup is 1.00
/tmp/extracted /home/work
Archive is cpio archive...
Decompression error
root@desktop:/home/user#

The refractasnapshot_errors.log file noted:

ls: cannot access '/home/snapshot/*.iso': No such file or directory
62 blocks

gzip: stdin: not in gzip format
cpio: premature end of archive
cpio: kernel/x86/microcode/AuthenticAMD.bin not created: newer or same age version exists
62 blocks
xzcat: (stdin): File format not recognized
cpio: premature end of archive

This occurred after a dist-upgrade from ascii to beowulf with the xfce4 desktop.  Missing dependency perhaps?  This upgrade was done remotely on a friends computer in a ssh terminal.  A lot of packages were removed with "apt autoremove", so something could have been removed. 

Thanks for any ideas.

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#2 2020-09-23 13:05:15

fsmithred
Administrator
Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 2,409  

Re: refractasnapshot error

xzcat: (stdin): File format not recognized

Looks like xz-utils got removed. I hope that's all it is.

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#3 2020-09-23 20:24:57

nixer
Member
From: North Carolina, USA
Registered: 2016-11-30
Posts: 185  

Re: refractasnapshot error

I was hoping it would be an easy fix, but not yet.  xz-utils is already installed

root@desktop:/home/user# apt install xz-utils
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
xz-utils is already the newest version (5.2.4-1).

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#4 2020-09-24 01:42:12

fsmithred
Administrator
Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 2,409  

Re: refractasnapshot error

Let me see the output of file -L /initrd.img I think it may have changed, and a test is failing.

Try removing amd64-microcode and re-running snapshot.

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#5 2020-09-24 10:46:29

nixer
Member
From: North Carolina, USA
Registered: 2016-11-30
Posts: 185  

Re: refractasnapshot error

file -L /initrd.img

root@desktop:/home/user# file -L /initrd.img
/initrd.img: ASCII cpio archive (SVR4 with no CRC)

I removed the

amd64-microcode

package and the snapshot successfully created.

Removing the amd64-microcode did not cause any problem with the system as far as we can tell.  It rebooted and displayed the xfce session fine.

Thanks for your help!

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#6 2020-09-24 12:52:53

fsmithred
Administrator
Registered: 2016-11-25
Posts: 2,409  

Re: refractasnapshot error

Yeah, you can operate without the microcode, but that's still really weird. I just tested with and without amd64-microcode and intel-microcode, and it works in all cases. The script removes crypttab and resume from the initrd. My system is encrypted.

Meanwhile, someone else is having the same problem on a debian 10 system without the microcode. In that case, 'file -L /initrd.img' gave output with 'gzip compressed' twice, which broke the test.

If you want the microcode to be present in an installation made from your snapshot without having to add it after the installation, there's a way to do that.

save_work="yes"
Make a snapshot without the microcode.
chroot /home/work/myfs and install the microcode.
Make another snapshot using the no-copy option (re-squash and run xorriso)

Then the initrd used to boot the iso won't have the microcode, but any installs made from that iso will have it.

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#7 2020-09-24 13:10:45

nixer
Member
From: North Carolina, USA
Registered: 2016-11-30
Posts: 185  

Re: refractasnapshot error

Nice to know and thanks again.  My friends install was originally a jessie install from 2016, updated to ascii, and now to beowulf.  His system is powered by an amd processor, hence, this is why I installed that firmware on it. 

I use the refractasnapshot script on other amd and intel powered cpus with and without the amd64-firmware package, and I have never had this problem.  I do not know why he has it, yet.  Maybe something will show later on, but I don't know now.

Appreciate your help!

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