jeffreywhunter Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 If I duplicate a USB stick to another stick do I: 1. Provide an exact duplicate backup (incase one fails) 2. Create a duplicate that I can use to create my second server? (I know I'd have to change the flash GUI and New Config the drives, and a bunch other things...but would the 'base' be there ready for a 'new config' and reinstall of all the plugins/dockers, etc... I'm thinking #2 is probably a stretch...but one can hope! Quote Link to comment
trurl Posted May 8, 2015 Share Posted May 8, 2015 Take some time to examine the files in config. There are a number of .cfg files. These are text files that you can easily examine. These are all settings from the webGUI. If you have configured any user shares, there is also a shares folder with .cfg files for each of the user shares you have configured. Like the other .cfg files, these are settings from the webGUI. The main configuration file though, and one that is not plain text, is super.dat. This is your array configuration, consisting of the disks you have assigned, start/stop state of the array, maybe some other things. As you may know, unRAID runs in RAM by unpacking bzimage, bzroot. Since these files don't change unless you update them, the OS doesn't really have any changes that persist after rebooting. Once you have some familiarity with what is on the flash drive, you can decide for yourself the answer to your question. Some things to watch out for. You can share the flash over the network and work with it that way instead of just at the command line. If you stop the array, the flash share is still accessible. If you copy super.dat with the array running, and try to boot with a copy of super.dat that says the array was running, unRAID will assume an unclean shutdown and begin a correcting parity check. So it's best to copy super.dat with the array stopped. Under no circumstances try to boot from a flash that has a super.dat that does not match your actual disk configuration. Another user had made a backup of his flash, but after that backup was taken, he replaced his parity disk and reused his old parity disk as a data disk. Later, he was having some problem, and decided to restore his flash from that old backup. unRAID thought his old parity drive was still his parity drive instead of a data drive, and began writing parity to it. Not good. If you want to edit any of the files on the flash, it is best to do so with an editor that can correctly handle Linux line endings. Notepad++ is often recommended. I know this is a much longer response than you wanted, and maybe you already knew some of it, but thought you might like some insight into what is actually on the flash and how it's used. Quote Link to comment
jeffreywhunter Posted May 8, 2015 Author Share Posted May 8, 2015 Nope, long answers are appreciated! Good info, appreciate your time to respond! Quote Link to comment
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