FSArchiver

First, remember that FSArchiver isn't Acronis (or equivalent) in Windows nor is it Clonezilla booted from an ISO or CD. Partitions and File Systems need to be made first with CFDISK and Formatting Commands or BLIVET or LVM stuff that needs to be done from a Command Line. Then each Partition, if there are multiple Partitions, must be recovered individually (even if stored in a single .fsa file)

Examples

• Information about a BackUp / Archive: fsarchiver archinfo WhatEverNameOfArchive
• Creating a BackUp / Archive: fsarchiver savefs -L "WhatEverLabel" -o -z1 -j4 -v "WhatEverBackUpPath/WhatEverBackUpFileName.fsa" /dev/WhatEverVolumeGroupName/WhatEverLogicalVolume
  • Example: fsarchiver savefs -L "RouterX_LVM-Storage" -o -z1 -j4 -v "/BackUps/BackUps - Estuary.LAN/Physical Machines/RouterX/RouterX_LVM-Storage.fsa" /dev/LVM_Storage/Storage
• Restoring a BackUp / Archive: fsarchiver restfs RouterX_LVM-ROOT.fsa id=WhatEverIDNumber,dest=/dev/WhatEverVolumeGroupName/WhatEverLogicalVolumeName (see this for creating Partitions, etc first: LVM )
  • Example: fsarchiver restfs RouterX_LVM-ROOT.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/VG.ROOT/LV.ROOT -v

Help from FSARCHIVER Command ( --help )

====> fsarchiver version 0.8.7 (2023-03-19) - http://www.fsarchiver.org <====
Distributed under the GPL v2 license (GNU General Public License v2).
 * usage: fsarchiver [<options>] <command> <archive> [<dev1> [<dev2> [...]]]
<commands>
 * savefs: save filesystems to an archive file (backup a device to a file)
 * restfs: restore filesystems from an archive (overwrites the existing data)
 * savedir: save directories to the archive (similar to a compressed tarball)
 * restdir: restore data from an archive which is not based on a filesystem
 * archinfo: show information about an existing archive file and its contents
 * probe [detailed]: show list of filesystems detected on the disks
<options>
 -o: overwrite the archive if it already exists instead of failing
 -v: verbose mode (can be used several times to increase the level of details)
 -d: debug mode (can be used several times to increase the level of details)
 -A: allow to save a filesystem which is mounted in read-write (live backup)
 -a: allow to save a filesystem when acls and xattrs are not supported
 -x: enable support for experimental features (they are disabled by default)
 -e <pattern>: exclude files and directories that match that pattern
 -L <label>: set the label of the archive (comment about the contents)
 -z <level>: legacy compression level from 0 (very fast) to 9 (very good)
 -s <mbsize>: split the archive into several files of <mbsize> megabytes each
 -j <count>: create more than one (de)compression thread. useful on multi-core cpu
 -c <password>: encrypt/decrypt data in archive, "-c -" for interactive password
 -h: show help and information about how to use fsarchiver with examples
 -V: show program version and exit
<information>
 * Support included for: lzo=yes, lzma=yes, lz4=no, zstd=no
 * Support for ntfs filesystems is unstable: don't use it for production.
<examples>
 * save only one filesystem (/dev/sda1) to an archive:
   fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1
 * save two filesystems (/dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1) to an archive:
   fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive2.fsa /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1
 * restore the first filesystem from an archive (first = number 0):
   fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive2.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1
 * restore the second filesystem from an archive (second = number 1):
   fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive2.fsa id=1,dest=/dev/sdb1
 * restore two filesystems from an archive (number 0 and 1):
   fsarchiver restfs /data/arch2.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1 id=1,dest=/dev/sdb1
 * restore a filesystem from an archive and convert it to reiserfs:
   fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,mkfs=reiserfs
 * restore a filesystem from an archive and specify extra mkfs options:
   fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,mkfs=ext4,mkfsopt="-I 256"
 * restore a filesystem from an archive and specify a new label and a new UUID:
   fsarchiver restfs /data/myarchive1.fsa id=0,dest=/dev/sda1,label=root,uuid=5f6e5f4f-dc2a-4dbd-a6ea-9ca997cde75e
 * save the contents of /usr/src/linux to an archive (similar to tar):
   fsarchiver savedir /data/linux-sources.fsa /usr/src/linux
 * save a filesystem (/dev/sda1) to an archive split into volumes of 680MB:
   fsarchiver savefs -s 680 /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1
 * save a filesystem and exclude all files/dirs called 'pagefile.*':
   fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa /dev/sda1 --exclude='pagefile.*'
 * generic exclude for 'share' such as '/usr/share' and '/usr/local/share':
   fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa --exclude=share
 * absolute exclude valid for '/usr/share' but not for '/usr/local/share':
   fsarchiver savefs /data/myarchive.fsa --exclude=/usr/share
 * save a filesystem (/dev/sda1) to an encrypted archive:
   fsarchiver savefs -c mypassword /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1
 * same as before but prompt for password in the terminal:
   fsarchiver savefs -c - /data/myarchive1.fsa /dev/sda1
 * extract an archive made of simple files to /tmp/extract:
   fsarchiver restdir /data/linux-sources.fsa /tmp/extract
 * show information about an archive and its filesystems:
   fsarchiver archinfo /data/myarchive2.fsa

Website

https://www.fsarchiver.org/