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Re: Restoring ReadyDR backups

Sandshark
Sensei

Restoring ReadyDR backups

I am looking to move a share and all it's snapshots to another NAS.  So, I figured ReadyDR was the tool for me.  Then I looked at this article:ReadyDR-Recovering-data-from-a-ReadyDR-share and I had no idea if it really was or not.  This is the absolute worst article in the series about ReadyDR.  People who are using ReadyDR to faithfully back up their shares are going to find little help if they ever actually need to restore from that backup.  Here is the text, with areas that need a lot of expanding in red.:

 

Failback

Failback means recovering a ReadyDR share back to the original production unit. In order to restore data from a ReadyDR share to a ReadyNAS (likely the same ReadyNAS that originally sent the data), create a new ReadyDR job to send the ReadyDR share back to the original production unit (as a new ReadyDR share), then clone the necessary snapshot and reconfigure the share settings. Afterwards, you can delete the ReadyDR share on the original production unit for additional storage space.

 

Failover

Failover means cloning a snapshot of the ReadyDR share on the backup ReadyNAS and redirecting traffic from production to the backup ReadyNAS. This requires additional configuration changes since all traffic that was originally destined for the production ReadyNAS doesn't currently go to the the backup ReadyNAS. If the production unit is offline, you could change the IP address on the backup unit to match the production units' address. This method will also require reconfiguring the share's network level permissions.

 

Just how does one clone a snapshot?  What if I want to recover all snapshots?  Does this really mean I need double the space on my NAS to restore the backup?  I did see there is a new (not mentioned anywhere in the article) "clone" function in the Settings for the ReadyDR share and tried it.  It did seem to create a new folder containing only the data from the latest snapshot.  So, what if I need an older one?  And what about my case of also wanting all the snapshots?

 

Why is there no way to simply convert the entire ReadyDR share to a normal share, including retention of snapshots?  Or is there, and it's just not documented or easy to find?

 

Message 1 of 6
StephenB
Guru

Re: Restoring ReadyDR backups

Perhaps try the software manual here: http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/READYNAS-100/READYNAS_OS_6_SM_EN.pdf  It answers some of your questions.

Message 2 of 6
Sandshark
Sensei

Re: Restoring ReadyDR backups

It does, a bit better than the KB article, which definitely needs a link like is in the manual regarding snapshot cloning.

 

It doesn't answer if there is a way I can convert the ReadyDR share to a standard one, or copy it to one, with all snapshots intact.

 

It also fails to explain if the clone is just pointing to the same blocks as in the original snapshot, thus taking no real drive space, or duplicates it, thus taking up real space and meaning that restoring a ReadyDR backup requires double the space taken by the source.

Message 3 of 6
StephenB
Guru

Re: Restoring ReadyDR backups

I agree it needs a better explanation. I played with it briefly, but didn't delve in that much. Rsync fits my goals better.

 


@Sandshark wrote:

 

It also fails to explain if the clone is just pointing to the same blocks as in the original snapshot, thus taking no real drive space, or duplicates it, thus taking up real space and meaning that restoring a ReadyDR backup requires double the space taken by the source.


It should describe that also, since if the primary NAS goes down, many people will need to restore the ReadyDR backups to shares on their backup NAS.

Message 4 of 6
Sandshark
Sensei

Re: Restoring ReadyDR backups

OK, so I did a bit of research.  ReadyDR seems to be making it easy to do a BTRFS send/receive between two NASes.  From everything I have read, the receive subvolume should be read-only, which explains the "lock" icon on the share.  But to make it into a normal subvolume, all that should be required is to make it no longer read-only and then move/restore the files out of the most recent snapshot.  I made it read-write via SSH (and confirmed it worked with btrfs property get), but the lock icon doesn't go away, so the GUI won't let me set any access.  I assume that Rollback will be an option (currently, it's not) once the share is recognized as read/write.

 

Another method I found is to make a snapshot and mount that snapshot as a deparate subvolume, but I've never succesfully created any shares "behind the scenes" with SSH and had the GUI see them.

Message 5 of 6
Sandshark
Sensei

Re: Restoring ReadyDR backups

I'm still looking for any help here.  I've Googled my fingers bloody and haven't found any good reference on how to convert a btrfs receive snapshot set (which is what ReadyDR creates) into a working subvolume with the snapshots intactact.  I did find that trying to make the snapshots read/write isn't the right way to go, you need to create a read/write snapshoot of the snapshot, which seems to be what the Clone function does.  It creates a usable main subvolume, but that doesn't include the remaining snapshots.

 

I could just keep all the snapshots in the original location, but the snapshot pruner won't operate on them.

 

Would a cp --reflink of the snapshots work?

Message 6 of 6
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