Hi there,
this is my first forum post after searching a lot and not finding sufficient information.
There are plenty of backup guides out there, but I’m looking for a procedure to restore my TrueNAS system in case the whole hardware is lost. I understand that it is quite easy to install the base OS to new hardware and to import a saved config. What the guides do not mention is how the file system (shares, Docker config and data paths etc.) can be restored from which kind of backup and if - among many things that link the OS config to (previous) storage - ACLs can be restored.
Is there a comprehensive guide for that?
Have a nice one,
Peter
Peter,
Welcome to the forums.
The overall evolution is very simple and you have almost said it in your posting. I do not personally know of a guide for this.
The process for recovery from a complete computer failure is:
- Obtain a new system that has the required hardware (does not need to be exactly the same but similar would be helpful.
- Add a boot drive and install TureNAS to it.
- Restore the TrueNAS Configure file.
- When TrueNAS boots up, you may need to use the Console to edit the network settings. Odds are good you will be doing this but it is fairly easy.
- Reboot, does it look good so far? Yes, power down and go to step 6.
- Install your drives.
- Power up and your system “should” be working.
Typically it is the network hardware which causes any issues. If you look at the forums, you will see this when people ask to recover more just move to other hardware.
I do not know about how this affect Docker, I suspect if the Docker uses a specific NIC, that may cause an issue. Otherwise all should be good.
If I’m wrong, have no fear, someone will jump in and correct me.
Before you invest a lot into TrueNAS, you could test this out in a VM, for example by using VMWare Workstation or VirtualBox. Create some VM hard drives and make some changes. You could even setup a Docker and test the move. VM’s are a great tool to learning.
I hope this helps some.
Thank you very much for the instant reply.
I’m not worried too much about network interfaces. Those should be easy to adapt on a new system.
But, as Docker config files and container persistent data reside on datasets on a storage pool, I’m asking myself what a saved config does include and what it doesn’t. My assumption is that a saved config cannot include datasets (or anything) from storage pools. And while it’s straightforward to restore a file based backup to newly created shares (where do those and their ACLs come from anyway on a restored system if there are no configured drives when importing the config?), I’m a bit worried about my Jellyfin config and DB, my dveleopment web sites etc.
