mkfs.xfs on bare metal recovery environment ISO

[hxp]

EDIT Moderator: split from kernel 5.8 topic

Once the next VBR update is released - it will be included in the ISO image and will also appear on the official repository.

On a side note, can you include mkfs.xfs in the ISO? I tried building it with xfsprogs installed on the system, but it wasn't included in the built image.

[PTide]

Hi,

Well, ok, this can be done in the next update.

However, I am curious what's your use case.

Thanks!

[hxp]

Thanks.

Redhat/Centos have XFS as default filesystem. If you need to restore files you might have to recreate a partition. Can't without those tools. I thought that building the ISO included the tools for the filesystem. It might be a good idea to include mkfs.btrfs, mkfs.xfs ... in the ISO when those filesystems are detected on the host.

[PTide]

Not sure that I fully understand. If your system is still alive, then why would you use Recovery ISO to restore files?
If your system is dead, then why would you use file-level restore if you could restore the whole system/certain volumes using the Recovery ISO?

I mean, I get it that you want to create a filesystem, and put some files on it. I just cannot comprehend the previous events that lead to such request.

Thanks!

[hxp]

Can't restore the system/volume without the kernel module.

If the system is still alive then of course the ISO is not needed.

[PTide]

Ok, makes sense. What are those drivers for? Network or storage I suppose? Where are they located on your live system?

The thing is that when you patch a recovery media, all additional drivers are expected to be copied to the patched ISO.
If that does not happen, please try to use --copy <additional_path> in order to copy additional files into a patched recovery image.

Thanks!

[hxp]

No problem with drivers. With kernel module I meant the veeamsnap module.

[PTide]

I feel that there must be some misconception here.

veeamsnap is required to create snapshots in order to perform consistent backups.

Recovery Media does not have veeamsnap installed intentionally, because veeamsnap is not required for volume/system restores.

If you meant that you performed a file-level backup without a snapshot, and now would like to manually restore those files onto their corresponding partitions so that the system is bootable again, then I'd suggest you to install veeam on any liveCD of your choice and use it to perform all operations with filesystems.

Although file-level without a snapshot is not quite for your usage scenario, we'll consider adding filesystems' tools into the media in the next update.

Thanks!

[hxp]

I feel so too. I'll quickly explain the use case:

you backup the system without the Veeam kernel module. If you want to bare metal restore the system you need to create a filesystem before being able to copy the files back to it's place. Can't create XFS file system right now because the mkfs.xfs program is missing. There are no special drivers for network/storage involved.

Although file-level without a snapshot is not quite for your usage scenario, we'll consider adding filesystems' tools into the media in the next update.

Thanks!