zfs send/receive as dump/restore alternative

[Victor Sudakov]

Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote:
> > 
> > I now run a couple of systems fully on zfs, and use e.g.
> > "zfs send -Rv zroot at 2016-10-01 > /mnt1/2016-09-25.zfs" 
> > for a full system backup to a remote file server.
> > 
> > With restore(8), I could restore any separate filesystem or even a single
> > file/directory from the dump, even interactively.
> 
> 	As others have indicated the zfs stream is not designed as an
> archive format but rather for efficient filesystem replication.

Hopefully it's good for disaster recovery too. I have even
written about my experience with zfs bare metal restore here:
http://victor-sudakov.dreamwidth.org/357521.html

> > How would you restore a) a single dataset or b) a single file from a
> > replication stream package? I really need this mode of operation for
> > undeleting users' files etc.
> 
> 	Undoing user mistakes is what snapshots were designed for (among
> other things). Install zfs-periodic to automate handling a set of hourly,
> daily, weekly and monthly snapshots (in <mountpoint>/.zfs/snapshot/ with
> nice clear names like hourly-2016-11-14-08). Then there's no need to go to
> the backups for mistakes, just copy the old version from a suitable snapshot

Good idea and a fresh outlook, thank you.

> and use send/receive to maintain a near-live disaster recovery copy
> (preferably offsite).

-- 
Victor Sudakov,  VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN
sip:sudakov at sibptus.tomsk.ru