USB boot stick died, how to recover from backup with bad ownerships and permissions?

[jus7incase]

Hi all,

 

when I powered my unraid server up after a 2 week absence, the USB boot stick was dead.

I tried to look at the stick on my mac, but it did not recognize the USB stick at all.

 

I found this to re-build my flash drive:

https://wiki.unraid.net/UnRAID_6/Changing_The_Flash_Device

There they need a backup as a ZIP file.

 

I do have a backup of the flash drive, but as it is with backups, I did not test them.

So what is the actual problem:

 

The backup is created using the Backup plugin and written to a local share.

This share is synchonized to a Synology DSM share using Syncthing on unraid and the Synology DiskStation.

On the Synology DiskStation, all files written by Syncthing have the ownership "sc-syncthing:syncthing" and permissions look like 644 for files or 755 for folders.

 

May I use the above cited procedure using my backup with quirky owenerships and permissions?

What whould be the best / safest way to proceed now?

 

Your help is appreciated!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[itimpi]

When you put the files back onto the USB stick the synology permissions will get removed as they cannot be stored on the USB stick which is using FAT32 format.

[jus7incase]

The stick is dead. But I have another stick, which in need to register for the unraid license.

So the permissions and ownerships are not of importance??

 

Shoudl I just format the stick FAT32 and copy the files onto it, or shoudl I ZIP the files and use the unraid falsh drive installer to create the stick?

 

[Frank1940]

I (personally) would just use these instructions:

 

       https://wiki.unraid.net/UnRAID_6/Getting_Started#Manual_Method_.28Legacy.29

 

If you have a complete backup of the boot drive, you can ignore the part about downloading a distribution from LimeTech.  If you build on a new flash drive and have a .key file in the config directory, it should prompt you to upgrade the .key file.

[Squid]

2 hours ago, jus7incase said:

using my backup with quirky owenerships and permissions?

The flash drive is formatted as FAT32, and as such doesn't support permissions anyways

[jus7incase]

Thanks for the info.

 

I formatted as FAT32 with a Master Boot Record and copied the files from the backup to the flash drive.

Then I ran "make_bootable_mac" and it asks whether UEFI boot should be enabled.

I responded "N", but the server does not boot from the USB flash drive.

Note: UEFI boot and legacy boot are enabled in BIOS.

 

This brings up a few questions:

 

(1) Does a Master Boot Record actually support UEFI boot? Or does UEFI require a GUID boot record?

(2) Can a GUID boot record be used with FAT32?

(3) Why is the system not booting from the flash drive?

 

Could I alternatively prepare a flash drive using the Limetech Unraid USB Creator and copy the crucial config files from the backup to the flash drive? If so, which files should I copy?

 

Edited May 19, 2019 by jus7incase
correction of technical detail

[Squid]

1 hour ago, jus7incase said:

(3) Why is the system not booting from the flash drive?

 

As a sanity check, have you checked the boot order in the BIOS and made sure that the BBS order is set for the replacement flashdrive first?

[jus7incase]

8 hours ago, Squid said:

As a sanity check, have you checked the boot order in the BIOS and made sure that the BBS order is set for the replacement flashdrive first?

I will do. I have not changed the boot order since the time when it worked, though.

I do not expect any new information from this and would only post a result if there was a misconfig.

 

Could I alternatively prepare a flash drive using the Limetech Unraid USB Creator and copy the crucial config files from the backup to the flash drive? If so, which files should I copy?

[John_M]

55 minutes ago, jus7incase said:

If so, which files should I copy?

Copy the whole config folder and use it to replace the default one written by the USB Creator tool.

 

[Frank1940]

Copy over the   config     folder.   

[Frank1940]

11 hours ago, jus7incase said:

1) Does a Master Boot Record actually support UEFI boot? Or does UEFI require a GUID boot record?

(2) Can a GUID boot record be used with FAT32?

Basically, Yes to both questions.  Both of my servers are booting using the UEFI mode and the boot drives are FAT32.  

 

If I remember correctly, if there is a folder in root named     EFI     the boot will be in the UEFI mode.   In the early releases when UEFI was being introduced, the default naming of that folder was    EFI-     which then allowed legacy boot mode as the default.   I am not sure what the default mode is with the current releases if you just copy over the files out of the distribution file and make the flash drive bootable.  

[jus7incase]

1 hour ago, Frank1940 said:

Basically, Yes to both questions.  Both of my servers are booting using the UEFI mode and the boot drives are FAT32.   

 

What boot record are you using on these FAT32 drives? MBR or GPT?

 

[Frank1940]

I would assume that it is MBR as these drives are (at least) five to six years old and have not been formatted since they first put into use.   They were done on a WIN7 computer with a MB from 2009.  

[jus7incase]

I just formatted as FAT32 with GPT and went into the boot options of the BIOS and now have:

1) flash drive UEFI

2) flash drive

3) UEFI boot shell

 

and the machine boots.

I am not sure though what path it used to boot UEFI or legacy, since I have enabled it to use either UEFI or legacy.

At least it proves that FAT32 works with GPT boot record.

 

Of course my license needs to be replaced, the software says "too many devices". I am sure the support will solve it like a breeze.

 

 

[jus7incase]

I received the license key for the flash drive and now unraid tells me "stale configuration" and none of the drives are assigned to any slot.

Is there a way to make unraid accept the config files from the backup to assign the drives? Just seems the safer option compared to

the exercise of looking up the serial numbers to assign the drives...

 

[jus7incase]

This problem is still there. 

[jus7incase]

Found the problem with some help of Tom of LimeTech.

 

CA_BACKUP renames super.dat into super.dat_CA_BACKUP. Thus the drives are not assigned.

after renaming it back up super.dat the server would start ok and config is not reported as stale any more.

the array started and parity was reported valid, so I canceled the parity check that was kicking in.

 

Edited May 29, 2019 by jus7incase