I’m kind of in a situation to need a backup to be able to restore after a fresh openhabianpi installation.
Let’s say, i know, what “openhab-cli backup/restore” does and i’m happy about this. But then i start to remember some of the quick&dirty changes i did (some solutions for serial ports f.e.). The problem is: there is no backup (like some notes or other documentation, filecopies, whatever). To lazy, to little time, …
What i understand is, that this is my fault. And i also understand, that there will never be a backup-tool, which matches my ex post expectations.
I realized three views on this topic now:
- what we have is not sufficient
- what we have is sufficient, but the user has to take care about
- what we have is not to bad
What i think is, that from the ex post view there will never be a sufficient software-only-solution. In addition if you have do a restore, the reason will be unpleasant most of the times. It will be necessary, when you never expected or even wanted it to happen. So: no patience with the restore procedure i never gave a try before. bang!
Everyone likes to have a backup. What we have to think about (make everyone think about) for the backup is: what do we want to restore for what reason?
It might be helpfull to show some szenarios with common traps. Looking at my installation on a raspi this could be something like (ideas sketch only):
be prepared to a broken sd card
- openhabianpi install
- openhabian-cli restore
- work through all my well documented modifcations using the menu
- work through all modifications in the filesystem (like /etc/fstab for mounts, /etc/udev/rules …)
- give it a try and repair all i forgot
be prepared for a broken z-wave usb stick
- is this “backupable”?
- is it “restorably” to new hardware
- do i have do include all devices again
- …
…
From my point of view, there are good tools for doing a backup/restore. Guidelines may be missing - possibly on a bundles-basis. I don’t really know. For me examples are always helpfull (not a concrete commandline but what to think about …).
It’s alway worth to discuss backup/restore. What i feel to be the wrong way is to discuss about a tool, which automagically backs up what i will expect when i already did the next restore.
So some people here are running oh since long an will for shure have some experience backing up and possibly - but even more important - restore. Just provide a list of thougts and findings. Nothing perfect.
This might be a starting point for more feedback and - possibly - some success, @Kim_Andersen.