Description of problem: If we change the UUID of a partition, the new rescue ISO built by the cron.d job will not be able to restore the system due to a incoherency with data in the backup. To reproduce the issue, change the UUID of the UEFI partition: disklayout.conf before the change: fs /dev/vda1 /boot/efi vfat uuid=ACC0-624F label= options=rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=winnt,errors=remount-ro fstab before the change: UUID=ACC0-624F /boot/efi vfat umask=0077,shortname=winnt 0 2 Then change the label: mlabel -N 12345678 -i /dev/vda1 :: Then, the cron.d job (or new systemd job) will recreate the rescue iso because the layout changed: 30 1 * * * root test -f /var/lib/rear/layout/disklayout.conf && /usr/sbin/rear checklayout || /usr/sbin/rear mkrescue New disklayout.conf: options=rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=winnt,errors=remount-ro But the /etc/fstab file that will be used during the recover, and that should be patched, is still the one in the backup, thus the old one with old UUID. And the patch will fail ... (without a warning :D). And the system will not boot. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1. create a backup 2. change the UUID of UEFI partition 3. wait a day to get a new rescue iso built by crond job Actual results: The rescue ISO is not able to restore the layout+system Expected results: the system is recovered without issue Additional info: A rescue ISO should not be built if the required data in the backup is not updated also. The recover of the system layout should rely on the data in the rescue ISO and not on the backup. Thus all the files that should be patched to update the UUID should be embedded in the rescue. Thanks !
Hello Benoit, we discussed upstream an approach to prevent inconsistencies between backup and rescue system: the mkrescue and mkbackuponly command would check if the backup or rescue image (respectively) is outdated. This would mostly address the need for this change. The change to include all the files that need patching in the rescue image directly could be implemented as well, I am not entirely sure it is a good idea to duplicate the backups of some files though (i.e. having them both in the backup and in the rescue image). OTOH it would have the advantage of working correctly even with external backup methods. I will discuss this in the upstream project.
Hi Pavel, Thanks a lot for the update. I followed the discussion at the beginning but then focused on other tasks. From my point of view, the rescue ISO should be able to restore the layout of the server without the backup, thus it can be understandable that files required for that are included in the ISO, and such "system" files should not be overwritten by the backup data. Thanks Benoit