What does the "Restore" button do?

[Redcoat]

I have not been able to find a description of the function of "RESTORE" shown above.

 

[Chris Moore]

Never done it, but if it works the way I would expect it to, it would roll-back to the configuration when the last backup was run.
Like restoring a ZFS snapshot.
The way I understand the "Replication Task" is that you have a pair of FreeNAS / TrueNAS systems setup and one system is sending a periodic snapshot to the other system as a backup. So it is a ZFS snapshot stored remotely. The systems have an established trust relationship, so when you say to restore, the system hosting that backup sends it back.

It is a feature I have not used although I have done ZFS send and receive from the command line and I think this is an automation task to handle similar functionality for purposes of automating backup and restore.

 

[Redcoat]

Never done it, but if it works the way I would expect it to, it would roll-back to the configuration when the last backup was run.
Like restoring a ZFS snapshot.
The way I understand the "Replication Task" is that you have a pair of FreeNAS / TrueNAS systems setup and one system is sending a periodic snapshot to the other system as a backup. So it is a ZFS snapshot stored remotely. The systems have an established trust relationship, so when you say to restore, the system hosting that backup sends it back.

It is a feature I have not used although I have done ZFS send and receive from the command line and I think this is an automation task to handle similar functionality for purposes of automating backup and restore.

Thanks, @Chris Moore . But that seems like a "radical" action not to be subject to qualification. Forgive me for looking to the devops for an authoritative answer.

 

[Chris Moore]

Thanks, @Chris Moore . But that seems like a "radical" action not to be subject to qualification. Forgive me for looking to the devops for an authoritative answer.

Well, I did read the manual: https://www.truenas.com/docs/hub/tasks/scheduled/replication/

I thought I understood it. You could always read it and see what you think.

Also, the older version of the manual might have more detail:

8. Tasks — FreeNAS®11.3-U5 User Guide Table of Contents

www.ixsystems.com

 

[Redcoat]

Thanks, Chris. My apologies if my words offended...

I did RTFM - both the old and the new - before I wrote but didn't find anything about the Restore button (and the11.3-U5 manual has a pic of that GUI page that didn't have the button anyway). I need to take another look.

 

[SMnasMAN]

I too am looking for a official answer to this question (or someone who has tried it), i cannot find anything in the manual related to this restore button / function.

(note; Chris Moore's link, is now 404 error, i think this below is the new link:

Replication Tasks

Decribes the fields on the Replication Tasks screen for TrueNAS CORE.

www.truenas.com

(^ does not mention restore nor restore button though)

(btw- 404 errors should almost *never* happen and are unacceptable on the web host or orginal-creators part)

If i end up setting up 2x test systems and do the restore button , i will post back here with an answer (however im not confident enough to try the restore button on the current replication of my main FN system, i have setup).

 

[Chris Moore]

(btw- 404 errors should almost *never* happen and are unacceptable on the web host or orginal-creators part)

I don't know why you are getting a 404 error. When I click the link, it still goes to the manual for the User Guide for FreeNAS v 11.3-U5. There is a redirection happening because the site name did change. Maybe you have some antivirus or something preventing the redirect from working.

I have still not had occasion to create a remote replication task and the GUI does not appear to include the restore button referenced in the original post. I have had occasion to mount local snapshots but restoring a remote snapshot would take as much time as sending the snapshot initially did, so it would only be a disaster recovery of last resort.

 

[SMnasMAN]

thanks for the reply, im no longer getting the 404 error, so it must have been a temporary issue or change on the web server side. ( at the time of my earlier reply, i did see a ixSys 404 error page)

I can confirm that on my replication testing setup of TrueNAS-12.0-U8.1 the "Restore" button does exist, exactly as the OP showed, (however i have not tried TN v13.x yet, so cant comment on that version).

fwiw- in the case of PULL replication tasks, pressing the restore button gives you the option to "restore" it to a local pool (which usually is not what the user would be looking to do, as they would already have a local copy from the replication itself).
I ended up doing some more tests and finalized the the CLI command i would use in a disaster / restore scenario
(please TEST this yourself, and do not copy/paste, as it can be destructive if you are not aware of what you are running - and in generally one should try to stick to the GUI):
I tested these commands below, several times, from a TrueNAS-12.0-U8.1 machine, restoring to (a network local) FreeNas/TN v11.2-U5 , then to a TN 11.3, and finally to a TN 12.0u8.1 (commands worked great on all).

Code:

# NB: in all cases the -v  is optional, and is just for verbose / extra output (else you only get output on an error or issue)

# TO RESTORE to a remote machine ( btw- in my case im using PULL type replication tasks)
zfs send -v myPool/MyDataset@auto-20220608.0600-3m | ssh <remoteIP> zfs recv -v remotePool/remoteDataset

# or if you want to restore the dataset AND all snapshots (ie prior snapshots):
zfs send -v -R myPool/MyDataset@auto-20220608.0600-3m | ssh <remoteIP> zfs recv -v remotePool/remoteDataset

#if you want to restore an encrypted Dataset, and all snaps / properties. (nb; dataset will endup locked on remotePool , and you will need to unlock it to access it, post transfer, as expected):
zfs send -v -R -w myPool/MyDataset@auto-20220608.0600-3m | ssh <remoteIP> zfs recv -v remotePool/remoteDataset