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#51 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-13 20:42:34

I'm still in the middle of following your latest instructions, but I'm writing to let you know that

conf/conf.d/resume said, "RESUME=none"

That's all it said. No UUIDs. The old snapshot had a RESUME=UUID= (long string) instead of "none".

and

conf/conf.d/zz-resume-auto was not found.

Now, I will try to do the third step, looking at the extracted initrd.img...

I don't know how to view it, I tried the command "nano initrd.img" but all I saw were garbage characters. I suspect that I was looking at the unextracted file, not the extracted one.

I JUST FOUND four initrd.img in various locations, three of them were dated today, but I couldn't see any readable characters in any of them.   sad

#52 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-13 20:18:40

fsmithred wrote:

Let's see what's in these two resume files. I don't understand why there are both of them. The first one is in older releases and then the name was changed to the second one in ascii or beowulf.

conf/conf.d/resume
conf/conf.d/zz-resume-auto

In order to get to those files, initrd.img needs to be extracted. Here are the commands to do that. Do this as unprivileged user in your home directory.

cp /initrd.img /home/computerbob/
mkdir extracted
cd extracted
(cpio -i ; zcat | cpio -i) < ../initrd.img

Then look in extracted/conf/conf.d/resume and zz-resume-auto
One or both will probably have the uuid of your swap partition. One or both might have RESUME=none. Or maybe something else I haven't thought of.

Don't delete the extracted stuff. It might be possible to fix and repack the initrd and plug it into the build process.

Thank you! I will try to do all of that now.

In the meantime, I wonder why I'm STILL seeing only symlinks in my SnapShot (when viewed from Thunar of my running HD installation). Is that normal. Could it be that the "BOOT FAILED" error message is telling the truth about not finding a bootable system, because all it sees are symlinks? Probably not, but I thought I'd ask, just in case.  wink

#53 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-13 19:20:31

fsmithred wrote:

Bob, that output looks normal. If you want to get rid of the message about missing firmware, you could install firmware-misc-nonfree if you have non-free repositories enables. (non-free refers to speech, not beer)

The real test will to see if the new snapshot boots.

I just checked -- I DO already have firmware-misc-nonfree installed.

But, more importantly, the new snapshot DOES EXACTLY THE SAME THING as the old one!

It boots up with many, many commands flying by on the screen.
It gets to the line that says:

random: crng init done

and there it stops for a minute or two, then:

BOOT FAILED!

Unable to find a medium... (exactly as I described above, when I used the old snapshot.  sad

#54 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-13 18:29:50

fsmithred wrote:

Perfect!!!

ComputerBob wrote:

(embarrassed) Well, I have no idea what I'm doing, but you're giving me great instructions on how to do it all anyway, so I'm happy to (try to) do it!

root@robinson:~# lsinitramfs /initrd.img | grep resume
conf/conf.d/resume
conf/conf.d/zz-resume-auto
scripts/local-premount/resume
usr/bin/resume
root@robinson:~# lsinitramfs /initrd.img | grep resume

Here's the fix.
1. Make a backup copy of /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume
    If you don't ever hibernate your computer, this step is not really necessary.
2. As root, edit /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume so that it contains only the following:
   RESUME=none
   Save the file.
3. Run update-initramfs -u
4. Make a new snapshot.

5. (Optional) If you do use hibernate, you need to undo what you did. Copy the original resume file back to where it was and run 'update-initramfs -u' again. If you do that, you'll have to do this whole procedure every time you want to make a snapshot.

I just did steps 2 and 3:

root@robinson:~# update-initramfs -u
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.19.0-14-amd64
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/nvidia/gv100/acr/ucode_load.bin for module nouveau
live-boot: core filesystems devices utils udev blockdev dns.
root@robinson:~# 

I hope that the results are what you hoped for/expected. My system uses nouveau, but Synaptic doesn't see any nouveau firmware, installed or not. Maybe it's actually nvidia firmware, that somehow works with nouveau?

I deleted the previous RefractaSnapshot iso and its SHAsum fle from /home/snapshot, to make more room on the / partition.

Now, I will try to make a new snapshot. (fingers crossed...)

#55 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 23:50:09

I never use hibernate, so I think that means I only have to run steps 2, 3, and 4 (on my HD, not on the USB stick).

THANK YOU SO MUCH, EVERYONE -- especially dice, ralph.ronnquist, and fsmithred!

I hope to do those "fix" steps ASAP tomorrow. My brain says that running them will require the use of at least 10 brain cells, and I'm down to having only 4 remaining brain cells tonight.   wink

#56 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 23:33:38

(embarrassed) Well, I have no idea what I'm doing, but you're giving me great instructions on how to do it all anyway, so I'm happy to (try to) do it!

root@robinson:~# lsinitramfs /initrd.img | grep resume
conf/conf.d/resume
conf/conf.d/zz-resume-auto
scripts/local-premount/resume
usr/bin/resume
root@robinson:~# lsinitramfs /initrd.img | grep resume

#57 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 23:29:42

ralph.ronnquist wrote:

Yes, that's right.

Basically I suspect that that kernel sees a slightly different device enumeation than the live-boot preparation code expected, and wrote in into the initrd boot procedure.

I ran the two commands, and wrote down what their results were, so that I could then reboot to my HD, and type it all below:

df
Filesystem        1K-blocks      Used       Available     Use%     Mounted on
udev                    6131464         0             6131464       0%            /dev
tmpfs                   1229144         36            1229108       0%            /run

fdisk -l
sh: fdisk: not found

#58 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 22:46:38

ralph.ronnquist wrote:

Hmm .. maybe I misunderstood, but isin't that what you refer to at post #25; it's where you come when you try to boot from your iso?

No, you understood correctly. Do you want me to boot up my faulty USB stick, wait for it to crash, and then run those commands from that "crashed" prompt? That's the only way I know how to get that prompt, but I thought you were implying that I should get it some direct way. Sorry.  wink

#59 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 22:25:10

ralph.ronnquist wrote:

Well, you should do those commands at the (initramfs) prompt rather.

I'm sorry - I did the first two commands in a terminal, and I copied the init file's contents from Mousepad.

I really have no idea how to get the initramfs prompt.  sad

#60 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 22:14:43

ralph.ronnquist wrote:

If you can come to the (initramfs) you're doing well: that prompt comes from having loaded the boot kernel and set up the initrd. That means that the machine has booted from the USB but it now runs into problems for "pivoting", i.e., on the attempt to transition the root file system point.

So at that prompt, you might be able to do soome "machine inspection" to figure out what is wrong. You might even create a fatter boot initrd to have more tools, eventually if necessary.

The first thing to do is to get an idea of the boot kernel's picture of the disks. Use df and fdisk -l for that.

Btw, you should be able to inspect that initrd init script on the system before (or when) writing the USB. It should be originating from the file /usr/share/initramfs-tools/init (or similar, if different with live-tools installed; @fsmithred might know)

computerbob@robinson:~$ su -
Password: 
root@robinson:~# df
Filesystem     1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev             6131508         0   6131508   0% /dev
tmpfs            1229144      1080   1228064   1% /run
/dev/sda1        8987368   4117432   4393676  49% /
tmpfs               5120         4      5116   1% /run/lock
tmpfs            2578500       924   2577576   1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda2        8813184   3119228   5226552  38% /home
/dev/sda6      258857292 102270356 144674464  42% /media/data
none             6145708         0   6145708   0% /run/user/1000
/dev/sdb1        1669504   1669504         0 100% /media/computerbob/liveiso
root@robinson:~# 
root@robinson:~# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 279.5 GiB, 300069052416 bytes, 586072368 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD3000HLFS-7
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 4ECAB59F-E177-402A-8228-77D09EB1E966

Device        Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1      2048  18397183  18395136   8.8G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda2  18397184  36438015  18040832   8.6G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda3  36438016  37640191   1202176   587M Linux swap
/dev/sda6  57970688 586072063 528101376 251.8G Linux filesystem

Disk /dev/sdb: 3.7 GiB, 4004511744 bytes, 7821312 sectors
Disk model: Cruzer          
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x3d2c28bb

Device     Boot Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *       64 3339071 3339008  1.6G 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
root@robinson:~# 

/usr/share/initramfs-tools/init (in Mousepad)

#!/bin/sh

# Default PATH differs between shells, and is not automatically exported
# by klibc dash.  Make it consistent.
export PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin

[ -d /dev ] || mkdir -m 0755 /dev
[ -d /root ] || mkdir -m 0700 /root
[ -d /sys ] || mkdir /sys
[ -d /proc ] || mkdir /proc
[ -d /tmp ] || mkdir /tmp
mkdir -p /var/lock
mount -t sysfs -o nodev,noexec,nosuid sysfs /sys
mount -t proc -o nodev,noexec,nosuid proc /proc

# shellcheck disable=SC2013
for x in $(cat /proc/cmdline); do
    case $x in
    initramfs.clear)
        clear
        ;;
    quiet)
        quiet=y
        ;;
    esac
done

if [ "$quiet" != "y" ]; then
    quiet=n
    echo "Loading, please wait..."
fi
export quiet

# Note that this only becomes /dev on the real filesystem if udev's scripts
# are used; which they will be, but it's worth pointing out
mount -t devtmpfs -o nosuid,mode=0755 udev /dev
mkdir /dev/pts
mount -t devpts -o noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620 devpts /dev/pts || true

# Export the dpkg architecture
export DPKG_ARCH=
. /conf/arch.conf

# Set modprobe env
export MODPROBE_OPTIONS="-qb"

# Export relevant variables
export ROOT=
export ROOTDELAY=
export ROOTFLAGS=
export ROOTFSTYPE=
export IP=
export DEVICE=
export BOOT=
export BOOTIF=
export UBIMTD=
export break=
export init=/sbin/init
export readonly=y
export rootmnt=/root
export debug=
export panic=
export blacklist=
export resume=
export resume_offset=
export noresume=
export drop_caps=
export fastboot=n
export forcefsck=n
export fsckfix=

# Bring in the main config
. /conf/initramfs.conf
for conf in conf/conf.d/*; do
    [ -f "${conf}" ] && . "${conf}"
done
. /scripts/functions

# Parse command line options
# shellcheck disable=SC2013
for x in $(cat /proc/cmdline); do
    case $x in
    init=*)
        init=${x#init=}
        ;;
    root=*)
        ROOT=${x#root=}
        if [ -z "${BOOT}" ] && [ "$ROOT" = "/dev/nfs" ]; then
            BOOT=nfs
        fi
        ;;
    rootflags=*)
        ROOTFLAGS="-o ${x#rootflags=}"
        ;;
    rootfstype=*)
        ROOTFSTYPE="${x#rootfstype=}"
        ;;
    rootdelay=*)
        ROOTDELAY="${x#rootdelay=}"
        case ${ROOTDELAY} in
        *[![:digit:].]*)
            ROOTDELAY=
            ;;
        esac
        ;;
    nfsroot=*)
        # shellcheck disable=SC2034
        NFSROOT="${x#nfsroot=}"
        ;;
    initramfs.runsize=*)
        RUNSIZE="${x#initramfs.runsize=}"
        ;;
    ip=*)
        IP="${x#ip=}"
        ;;
    boot=*)
        BOOT=${x#boot=}
        ;;
    ubi.mtd=*)
        UBIMTD=${x#ubi.mtd=}
        ;;
    resume=*)
        RESUME="${x#resume=}"
        case $RESUME in
        UUID=*)
            RESUME="/dev/disk/by-uuid/${RESUME#UUID=}"
        esac
        ;;
    resume_offset=*)
        resume_offset="${x#resume_offset=}"
        ;;
    noresume)
        noresume=y
        ;;
    drop_capabilities=*)
        drop_caps="-d ${x#drop_capabilities=}"
        ;;
    panic=*)
        panic="${x#panic=}"
        case ${panic} in
        *[![:digit:].]*)
            panic=
            ;;
        esac
        ;;
    ro)
        readonly=y
        ;;
    rw)
        readonly=n
        ;;
    debug)
        debug=y
        quiet=n
        if [ -n "${netconsole}" ]; then
            log_output=/dev/kmsg
        else
            log_output=/run/initramfs/initramfs.debug
        fi
        set -x
        ;;
    debug=*)
        debug=y
        quiet=n
        set -x
        ;;
    break=*)
        break=${x#break=}
        ;;
    break)
        break=premount
        ;;
    blacklist=*)
        blacklist=${x#blacklist=}
        ;;
    netconsole=*)
        netconsole=${x#netconsole=}
        [ "x$debug" = "xy" ] && log_output=/dev/kmsg
        ;;
    BOOTIF=*)
        BOOTIF=${x#BOOTIF=}
        ;;
    fastboot|fsck.mode=skip)
        fastboot=y
        ;;
    forcefsck|fsck.mode=force)
        forcefsck=y
        ;;
    fsckfix|fsck.repair=yes)
        fsckfix=y
        ;;
    fsck.repair=no)
        fsckfix=n
        ;;
    esac
done

# Default to BOOT=local if no boot script defined.
if [ -z "${BOOT}" ]; then
    BOOT=local
fi

if [ -n "${noresume}" ] || [ "$RESUME" = none ]; then
    noresume=y
else
    resume=${RESUME:-}
fi

mount -t tmpfs -o "noexec,nosuid,size=${RUNSIZE:-10%},mode=0755" tmpfs /run
mkdir -m 0755 /run/initramfs

if [ -n "$log_output" ]; then
    exec >$log_output 2>&1
    unset log_output
fi

maybe_break top

# Don't do log messages here to avoid confusing graphical boots
run_scripts /scripts/init-top

maybe_break modules
[ "$quiet" != "y" ] && log_begin_msg "Loading essential drivers"
[ -n "${netconsole}" ] && modprobe netconsole netconsole="${netconsole}"
load_modules
[ "$quiet" != "y" ] && log_end_msg

if [ "$ROOTDELAY" ]; then
    sleep $ROOTDELAY
fi

maybe_break premount
[ "$quiet" != "y" ] && log_begin_msg "Running /scripts/init-premount"
run_scripts /scripts/init-premount
[ "$quiet" != "y" ] && log_end_msg

maybe_break mount
log_begin_msg "Mounting root file system"
# Always load local and nfs (since these might be needed for /etc or
# /usr, irrespective of the boot script used to mount the rootfs).
. /scripts/local
. /scripts/nfs
. /scripts/${BOOT}
parse_numeric "${ROOT}"
maybe_break mountroot
mount_top
mount_premount
mountroot
log_end_msg

if read_fstab_entry /usr; then
    log_begin_msg "Mounting /usr file system"
    mountfs /usr
    log_end_msg
fi

# Mount cleanup
mount_bottom
nfs_bottom
local_bottom

maybe_break bottom
[ "$quiet" != "y" ] && log_begin_msg "Running /scripts/init-bottom"
# We expect udev's init-bottom script to move /dev to ${rootmnt}/dev
run_scripts /scripts/init-bottom
[ "$quiet" != "y" ] && log_end_msg

# Move /run to the root
mount -n -o move /run ${rootmnt}/run

validate_init() {
    run-init -n "${rootmnt}" "${1}"
}

# Check init is really there
if ! validate_init "$init"; then
    echo "Target filesystem doesn't have requested ${init}."
    init=
    for inittest in /sbin/init /etc/init /bin/init /bin/sh; do
        if validate_init "${inittest}"; then
            init="$inittest"
            break
        fi
    done
fi

# No init on rootmount
if ! validate_init "${init}" ; then
    panic "No init found. Try passing init= bootarg."
fi

maybe_break init

# don't leak too much of env - some init(8) don't clear it
# (keep init, rootmnt, drop_caps)
unset debug
unset MODPROBE_OPTIONS
unset DPKG_ARCH
unset ROOTFLAGS
unset ROOTFSTYPE
unset ROOTDELAY
unset ROOT
unset IP
unset BOOT
unset BOOTIF
unset DEVICE
unset UBIMTD
unset blacklist
unset break
unset noresume
unset panic
unset quiet
unset readonly
unset resume
unset resume_offset
unset noresume
unset fastboot
unset forcefsck
unset fsckfix

# Move virtual filesystems over to the real filesystem
mount -n -o move /sys ${rootmnt}/sys
mount -n -o move /proc ${rootmnt}/proc

# Chain to real filesystem
# shellcheck disable=SC2086,SC2094
exec run-init ${drop_caps} "${rootmnt}" "${init}" "$@" <"${rootmnt}/dev/console" >"${rootmnt}/dev/console" 2>&1
echo "Something went badly wrong in the initramfs."
panic "Please file a bug on initramfs-tools."

#61 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 22:10:55

fsmithred wrote:

I don't see anything helpful in the log. It all looks good. Are there any messages above the boot error other than the ones you posted?

Mount the usb and run

lsinitramfs /media/computerbob/liveiso/live/initrd.img | grep resume

to see if conf/conf.d/resume exists. It should not be there, and if it is, that may be the problem.

computerbob@robinson:~$ su -
root@robinson:~# lsinitramfs /media/computerbob/liveiso/live/initrd.img | grep resume
conf/conf.d/zz-resume-auto
scripts/local-premount/resume
usr/bin/resume
root@robinson:~# 

#62 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 20:45:19

fsmithred wrote:

What you posted is strong evidence that the usb was imaged correctly. Use the email link to send me /var/log/refractasnapshot.log and I will look at it.

I just sent it to you.   wink

#63 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 19:28:25

NO BOOT.INI?

root@robinson:/home/computerbob# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            5.9G     0  5.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs           1.2G  1.1M  1.2G   1% /run
/dev/sda1       8.6G  4.0G  4.2G  49% /
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           2.5G  924K  2.5G   1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda2       8.5G  3.0G  5.0G  38% /home
/dev/sda6       247G   98G  138G  42% /media/data
none            5.9G     0  5.9G   0% /run/user/1000
/dev/sdb1       1.6G  1.6G     0 100% /media/computerbob/liveiso
root@robinson:/home/computerbob# locate boot.ini
root@robinson:/home/computerbob# 

I don't think I would be capable of finding what went wrong in the build process.

I hope that maybe what I posted above says enought - no boot.ini. Does that mean that I should start over and try to re-create the iso itself (the only RefractaSnapshot iso that's currently on my HD)?

#64 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 19:12:57

Two different times, as advised (I think), I reset my USB stick to be completely unallocated space.

Then I used the command

cat /home/snapshot/snapshot-20210311_1353.iso > /dev/sdb

to copy the RefractaSnapshot-created iso to my USB stick.

Then I rebooted to the USB stick.

Both times resulted in exactly the same outcome:

1. No more activity seen after:

random: crng init done

2. No prompt, just a flashing underscore cursor for a few minutes.
3. "BOOT FAILED" message, exactly as described above, with same reason listed above.

If it's working for others, but not working for me, I must somehow be the problem...

#65 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 18:28:34

This is not my Ventoy USB stick. This is a different USB stick that I used GParted to completely erase before using.

The symlinks that I mentioned are all on the USB stick itself. In Thunar, running on my actual HD, I don't see ANY actual files on that stick.

ls /media/computerbob/liveiso

lists the following

isolinux  live  pkglist_snapshot-20210311_1353

It's probably something I missed, way back at the beginning somewhere...

I'M GOING TO COMPLETELY ERASE MY USB STICK, AND TRY AGAIN...

#66 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 17:03:54

alphalpha wrote:

you could check if your iso boots in a virtual machine, to get the usb stick out of the equation

sudo apt install qemu-system-x86
sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -m 2560 --drive format=raw,file=/home/snapshot/snapshot-20210311_1353.iso

Maybe someone could do that, but I can't. But thank you for thinking about it, and for making your suggestion.

#67 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 16:49:08

I must have done something wrong.

When looking at my USB drive in Thunar, running on my hard drive -installed Beowulf, I see all symlinks on my USB drive. I will try to attach screenshots of all 3 symlinked folders, their contents, and the Properties of a few of the files that are inside those folders...

I don't know how to attach those screenshots to this message, but the two files on my USB drive that I viewed the Properties of,

boot.ini symlinks to
/media/computerbob/liveiso/isolinux

and

package_list symlinks to
/media/computerbob/liveiso/pkglist_snapshot-20210311_1353

#68 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 15:29:14

I looked at the contents of my USB drive some more. ALL of the contents of that drive appear to me to be symlinks -- is that what they're supposed to be, or should they be regular links to files that are actually stored on that drive itself?

#69 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 04:09:20

I must still be doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what.

Thank you so much, everyone, but I'm too tired to think about this any more tonight. I can feel that I may be on the verge of doing something majorly stupid, without even realizing it.   sad

Just as I had hoped, copying the iso to the unpartitioned USB drive appeared to work. The command prompt eventually returned, and the USB drive stopped indicating any activity.

Viewing the USB drive's contents afterward, showed 3 folders, all symlinks. I didn't explore any further.

I shut down my computer, and booted with the USB drive in place.

The "Live Menu" appeared - I chose the first (default) item on the menu, to run a live session.

Many, many commands flew onto the screen, just like a normal Linux boot-up looks.

But after waiting for some time, without any new boot-up commands appearing, the following message appeared:

BOOT FAILED!
This Live System Image failed to boot.

Please file a bug against the 'live-boot' package (more description)...
(4 more lines of information)

Then the following message appeared:

The error message was
Unable to find a medium containing a live file system

(initramfs) _

#70 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 03:35:07

OK, my USB device is /dev/sdb, so I am currently running the command

cat /home/snapshot/snapshot-20210311_1353.iso> /dev/sdb

My USB drive appears to be active, but I see no indication on my PC's terminal screen, that anything is happening.
It's been a few minutes, with no command prompt in my PC's terminal screen. I hope that soon, my PC's terminal screen will go back to a command prompt, and the copying process will be done.

#71 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 03:24:35

fsmithred wrote:

You don't want to copy the iso to a formatted partition. You need to copy the file directly to the device. If the usb is /dev/sdb, then one way to do it is cat snapshot-whatever.iso > /dev/sdb

This will overwrite anything that was on the usb, so using an empty one is good.

Great! I will try to do that! Thank you, again!

#72 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 02:52:43

I thought it was all working OK, but I just shut down my PC and booted from my Ventoy USB drive.

Apparently, Ventoy works the way that you suspected, fsmithred. In Ventoy, I first chose "snapshot_20210311_1253.iso", to select my iso snapshot.

That caused a second "LIVE" menu to appear, in which the first (default) of several entries automatically starting before I could read all of the other choices.

Several (~30?) boot-up lines scrolled down the screen, quickly, but eventually began to appear several seconds apart.

The last few lines that appeared said:

Begin: running /scripts/live-pre(something I don''t remember)... done
random: fast-init done
random: crng init done
random: 4 urandom warning(s) missed due to rate limiting

Underneath that, a flashing underscore prompt appeared, and nothing further happened.

After waiting for 2 minutes, I manually shut my PC's power off, removed the Ventoy USB drive, and successfully booted back into my hard drive's installed Beowulf system.

Maybe instead of using Ventoy to start it, my RefractaSnapshot it would work as expected if, as was hinted, I simply copy that iso file directly to an empty, formatted USB drive?

#73 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-12 01:30:57

alphalpha wrote:
ComputerBob wrote:

Does that sound like what's supposed to happen -- no LIVE image, but the option to RE-INSTALL my current system, exactly the way that it was installed and configured when I used RefractaSnapshot to create that .iso?

you can boot the live environment and from there you can install with refractainstaller-gui or refractainstaller

Am I understanding you correctly? I think what you are saying is that I could boot into my current, installed system (live environment?), and then use refractainstaller-gui or refractainstaller to  to install the .iso file that's still in /home/snapshot/ to a different drive or partition?

At this point, I only want  -- IF EVER NECESSARY -- to be able to boot my Ventoy USB device, and install the .iso that Refracta-Snapshot created of my running system -- which I already copied ti that Ventoy USB device, to restore my system to exactly the system that I had used Refracta-Snapshot to backup.

Are you saying that I will need to use a version of Refracta-Installer to restore my configured, running system, if I ever "mess it up?"

I'm sorry that I'm confused about that issue. My intelligence seems to come and go, however it pleases.

Thank you for your knowledge and patience.   wink

#74 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-11 20:05:09

I hesitate to declare victory, because I've never seen or used refractasnapshot-gui before today, but, as far as I can fell, I was successful. I copied the .iso that it created -- which was in /home/snapshot/ to my Ventoy USB drive, then shut down. I started with the Ventoy drive in place, and it gave me 2 menu choices:

1. Beowulf 3.1.0 server (which I had used when I originally installed Beowulf)
2. Devuan Beowulf (the RefractaSnapshot that I had just created of my running system)

When I chose the second menu choice, I was shown several different installation choices (I don't remember what they were. I quit without choosing any of them.

Does that sound like what's supposed to happen -- no LIVE image, but the option to RE-INSTALL my current system, exactly the way that it was installed and configured when I used RefractaSnapshot to create that .iso?

If so, that was so fast and simple that even a guy like me, with a brain the size of a golfball, could do it!  wink

<update>Many, many thanks to all of you, especially to dice, for your very kind offer of help, and fsmithred (If you are, indeed the person who created the fantastic RefractaSnapshot-gui software that I used).</update>

#75 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Backup entire installed Beowulf w/software + configs + /home? » 2021-03-11 18:26:32

Thank you! I will give the gui version a look, and then look at the CLI version if I think I can!  wink

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