FirstBackup

The First Backup operation

We will see the first backup operation, which is different from the others because it will transfer all of the filesystem to the destination.

In case of a filesystem with previous snapshots, if you specify a different configuration file for a different destination, a "first backup" operation will be performed, transferring all snapshots.

Clone the zfs-backup repository to nas

user@nas:~/src$ mkdir -p ~/src
user@nas:~/src$ cd src
user@nas:~/src$ git clone https://github.com/finzic/zfs-backup.git

Create the Backup Configuration File

We will create a sample backup configuration file.

• Our source will be zfspool/Documents on the NAS server;
• Our destination will be backuppool/DocumentsBackup on the BACKUP server backup with the user buser

user@nas:~/src$ cd ~/src/zfs-backup
nano -w ExampleDocuments.bkp

In the nano editor type as follows:

SRC_POOL=zfspool
SRC_DATASET=Documents

DST_POOL=backuppool
DST_DATASET=DocumentsBackup

DST_USERNAME=buser
DST_ADDR=backup

Save your file. You're good to go with your first backup! Let's do it!

Backup Execution

Let's see that there are no previous snapshots in the nas system:

user@nas:~/src/zfs-backup$ zfs list -t snapshot
no datasets available
user@nas:~/src/zfs-backup$ 

Now let's see that we have some data usage:

user@nas:~/src/zfs-backup$ zfs list 
NAME                USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
zfspool             476M  18.6G   128K  /mnt/raid
zfspool/Documents   474M  18.6G   474M  /mnt/raid/Documents
user@nas:~/src/zfs-backup$ 

OK, we have nearly 500MB worth of data.

Let's back it up:

user@nas:~/src/zfs-backup$ ./zfs-backup.sh -b ExampleDocuments 

####################################################################################################
                 ZFS Backup Script - server name = nas
####################################################################################################

Starting Zfs Backup - Backup operation requested. 
Backing up zfspool/Documents to remote server backup as remote user buser on backuppool/DocumentsBackup
no datasets available
Snapshot performed correctly: zfspool/Documents@2024.07.26-00.48.47
Latest Snapshot is zfspool/Documents@2024.07.26-00.48.47
Finding differences between zfspool/Documents@2024.07.26-00.48.47 and current status of zfspool/Documents - this could take some time...
There are no local differences -> the latest local snapshot will be considered as current snapshot.

Current local snapshot = zfspool/Documents@2024.07.26-00.48.47

The dataset DocumentsBackup is not present in the REMOTE backup system.
Calculating MD5SUMs for all files on the local server - please wait...
Calculating md5sums parallelizing 4x...
ETA: 0s Left: 46 AVG: 0.00s  local:1/2/100%/0.0s 
Computers / CPU cores / Max jobs to run
1:local / 2 / 2

Computer:jobs running/jobs completed/%of started jobs/Average seconds to complete
ETA: 0s Left: 0 AVG: 0.04s  local:0/48/100%/0.0s  
Fixing paths in md5sums file...
Substituting Documents with DocumentsBackup in md5sums file...
... MD5SUMs done.
Preparing to send the whole dataset with all its snapshots...
Estimated size of zfspool/Documents is : 474M
Current LOCAL snapshot is zfspool/Documents@2024.07.26-00.48.47
Sending all dataset to backup system...
receiving full stream of zfspool/Documents@2024.07.26-00.48.47 into backuppool/DocumentsBackup@2024.07.26-00.48.47
 480MiB 0:00:06 [74.2MiB/s] [74.2MiB/s] [==============================================================================================================] 101%            
received 481M stream in 6.78 seconds (70.9M/sec)
... Everything OK
Sending all dataset to backup system... Completed
Retrieving mountpoint for remote backup system dataset...
Remote backup system dataset mountpoint is: /mnt/storage
source pool             = zfspool
source dataset          = Documents
---
destination address     = backup
destination username    = buser
destination pool        = backuppool
destination dataset     = DocumentsBackup
####################################################################################################
Sending md5sums file to remote system...
md5-DocumentsBackup.txt                                                                                                                100% 4770     3.4MB/s   00:00    
Checking remote md5sums, please wait...
DocumentsBackup/Richiesta Appuntamento.PDF: OK
[...]
remote md5sum are correct.
Setting remote dataset as readonly...
Remote dataset backuppool/DocumentsBackup set as readonly.
Backup operations completed successfully.
user@nas:~/src/zfs-backup$ 

Now let's check that we have a new local snapshot:

user@nas:~/src/zfs-backup$ zfs list -t snapshot
NAME                                    USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
zfspool/Documents@2024.07.26-00.48.47   117K      -   474M  -
user@nas:~/src/zfs-backup$ 

Fair enough!

Now let's check that we have a similar snapshot on the backup server:

buser@backup:~$ zfs list -t snapshot
NAME                                             USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
backuppool/DocumentsBackup@2024.07.26-00.48.47    88K      -   474M  -
buser@backup:~$ 

Impressive, isn't it?

Now we're ready to check this on our Windows PC.

Go to Remote Samba Server Configuration then.