How do you transfer existing installation to new USB Stick?

[majorgear]

I installed FreeNAS 9.1 on a hacked-together USB stick ( micro usb card + USB adapter for card ) made from really old parts that I had lying around. I just got an 8GB Corsair that I ordered to replace it, and I have used the Web gui "save config" to save the configuration on my Macbook.

I haven't found backup and restore instructions anywhere, but how would I do it? I have pieced together this much:

1. ??? - do I need to backup anything else?
2. Install FreeNAS 9.1 on the new stick
3. Shutdown Existing FreeNAS system
4. Boot from new FreeNAS stick
5. ???- it will probably ask me to configure FreeNAS on the 1st boot, will it give me a restore option here as well?
6. Restore settings using the Web GUI "Upload Config" option.

My goal is to have all users, settings, shares, jails, zfs pools,datasets,permissions intact when I'm done, with the only difference being that the system boots from the new USB stick.

 

[survive]

Hi thegooch,

Yep, that's pretty much it. Save the config, boot the new stick, upload the config & you should be set.

The only thing this process doesn't bring over is the reporting graph data. It's a little more complex if you want to retain that.

The best thing about doing it this way is if you have any problems just pop in the old boot device, reboot & it's like nothing ever happened.

-Will

 

[majorgear]

I'm done. It went well but the first boot took longer than expected. This was because I transferred DNS/DHCP services to my FreeNAS box earlier today, and so I turned my router's DHCP service off. FreeNAS spent a lot of time waiting for response to it's DHCP requests (about 4 of them ). Once I got the console up, I was able to configure the primary ethernet interface, and then restore the configuration via a settings upload.

All of my network shares and services that I've checked so far are working just like before.

I noticed that FreeNAS 9.2.2 is out. I'll look at upgrading to that from 9.1 later.