Lee Marzke on 5 Nov 2009 15:54:41 -0800


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Re: [PLUG] Partition image/restore on Encrypted LVM vg


JP Vossen wrote:
>> Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:09:49 -0400
>> From: Lee Marzke <lee@marzke.net>
>>
>> I'd like to try upgrading my Ubuntu to the new 9.10 release but I need a way
>> to revert.   Normally I'd copy the partition with 'dd' or other tools, 
>> but in this case I've got (root, swap, home) in an encrypted vg0
>>
>> I could create the image in runlevel 1, but how would I be able to
>> restore it if needed? I think Knoppix will load an encrypted partition, but
>> only if it contains a single volume, not an LVM volume group.
>>     
>
> I just did that on my Mini9, which has a similar setup (clear /boot, 
> encrypted LVM for the rest).  Any imager should be able to do it, but it 
> will require a 'dd' image of the entire thing, since by definition the 
> encrypted stuff is a) unreadable outside itself and b) random and thus 
> uncompressible.
>
> That didn't matter for the Mini, since it only has 16G SSD.  It could 
> get old for large disks though.
>
> I first attempted to use aa1backup 
> (http://macles.blogspot.com/2008/12/acer-aspire-one-aa1backup.html ) on 
> a 40G drive in the USB enclosure .  I booted the USB drive and tried a 
> full backup but got "fatal error occurred - slax data not found" . 
> Various t-shooting didn't help, but I didn't spent that much time on it.
>
> Then I tried Clonezilla ZIP to USB , which worked, but as noted did a 
> full dd of the entire SSD since it couldn't get into the crypt-fs stuff.
> * wget 
> 'https://sourceforge.net/projects/clonezilla/files/clonezilla_live_alternative/OldFiles/20090812-jaunty/clonezilla-live-20090812-jaunty.zip/download' 
>
> * Follow: http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live/liveusb.php
>    - unzip clonezilla-live-20090812-jaunty.zip -d /media/disk-1
>    - cd /media/disk-1/utils/linux/
>    - bash makeboot.sh /dev/sdb2
>
> I found the Clonezilla interface a tad clunky, but it had a lot of 
> backup and restore options and it looks like it would be great for 
> scripted use.  It can write to disk or image, as you might expect, so 
> depending on your setup writing a copy of your disks to a new disk might 
> be easiest.
>
> I did not test my backup image, which is of course a unacceptible in 
> real production, but I had also copied imporant stuff elsewhere [1], so 
> I didn't care that much.  I *did* end up using Clonezilla to restore the 
> image, which worked fine, since my first upgrade attempt failed 
> miserably (I think I was too early by about a week).  The second attempt 
> "worked" though it was not seamless enough for newbies, and I had/have 
> some lingering issues that may be related to the ext4 driver.  Note the 
> mini uses the LPIA architecture, not x86 or x64, so it may be less 
> supported/tested/whatever.
>
> Good luck, let us know,
> JP
JP,

The Clonezilla method worked great,  but it took about 7 hours
to clone the  400GB LVM encrypted partition with 'dd' to an external
USB drive. I didn't  have any way of testing it either so I also made
additional backup  of important stuff.

The normal Ubuntu upgrade method to 9.10 also worked without problems.
The only things I had problems with were missing fonts --
ttf-bitstream-vera needed by one of my Scribus documents.

Seems Ubuntu has removed the Bitstream Vera fonts in favor of Dejavu
for some reason.

OK, one problem is that after a screen rotate, the stylus interpretation
isn't rotated,  ugh.   This was fixed manually with a script in 9.04 and
looks like it's broken again. ( on X61 tablet )

I did not update partitions to ext4,  but did try an ext3/ext4 conversion
on a mostly empty partition to verify the process.

Thank for the pointers.   I hadn't done a major upgrade before,  never
thought
it would be this easy.

Lee

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