This quick start guide will show you how to run Relax-and-Recover from the git checkout and create a bootable USB backup.
Please note that this is intended for testing, experimentation and development as bypasses some of the security measures that are in place for production use. For production use, please install ReaR into your system, either via a package or via sudo make install from source.
Start by cloning the Relax-and-Recover sources from GitHub:
git clone https://github.com/rear/rear.git
Move into the rear/ directory:
cd rear/
Prepare your USB media. Change /dev/sdb to the correct device in your situation. Relax-and-Recover will ‘own’ the device in this example.
This will destroy all data on that device.
sudo usr/sbin/rear format /dev/sdb
Relax-and-recover asks you to confirm that you want to format the device:
Yes
The device has been labeled REAR-000 by the ‘format’ workflow.
Now edit the ‘etc/rear/local.conf’ configuration file:
cat > etc/rear/local.conf <<EOF
### write the rescue initramfs to USB and update the USB bootloader
OUTPUT=USB
### create a backup using the internal NETFS method, using 'tar'
BACKUP=NETFS
### write both rescue image and backup to the device labeled REAR-000
BACKUP_URL=usb:///dev/disk/by-label/REAR-000
### add this if you use Secure Boot
SECURE_BOOT_BOOTLOADER=(/boot/efi/EFI/*/shimx64.efi)
EOF
Now you are ready to create a rescue image. We want verbose output.
sudo usr/sbin/rear -v mkrescue
The output I get is:
Relax-and-Recover 1.13.0 / $Date$
Using log file: /home/jeroen/tmp/quickstart/rear/var/log/rear/rear-fireflash.log
Creating disk layout
Creating root filesystem layout
WARNING: To login as root via ssh you need to setup an authorized_keys file in /root/.ssh
Copying files and directories
Copying binaries and libraries
Copying kernel modules
Creating initramfs
Writing MBR to /dev/sdb
Copying resulting files to usb location
You might want to check the log file for possible errors or see what Relax-and-Recover is doing.
Now reboot your system and try to boot from the USB device.
If that worked, you can dive into the advanced Relax-and-Recover options and start creating full backups. If your USB device has enough space, initiate a backup using:
sudo usr/sbin/rear -v mkbackup
That is it. Your hard disk can now safely fail.