Recovering a zfs root pool from backup

Chris Stankevitz chris at stankevitz.com
Sun Nov 22 07:23:55 UTC 2015


I have a 'zroot' as setup by the FreeBSD install procedure on "Machine 
A".  I back it up like so:

zfs snapshot -r zroot at backup

zfs send -Rv zroot at backup > /path/to/external/drive/zroot.backup.bin

Let's assume that "Machine A" zroot pool is destroyed.  On "Machine B" I 
issue these commands:

zpool create zroot /dev/new/drive

cat /path/to/external/drive/zroot.backup.bin | zfs receive -d zroot

I do not believe that this will create a working drive for Machine A 
because:

1. I doubt I can create a new pool called "zroot" on Machine B since it 
is already running a pool called "zroot"

2. I doubt that this process will create the appropriate "boot sector" 
stuff (I do not know what I am talking about here).

Can you provide a solution to either of these problems and/or identify 
other problems with my backup/restore procedure?

Thank you,

Chris

PS: The system is a file server with nearly all data stored on a zpool 
that is not "zroot".


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