qvm-backup-restore --verify-only broken ?

[Jean-Luc Duriez]

Hello Qubists

I currently use Qubes R4 RC2, and would like to upgrade to RC3 after a backup. But I experience problems with the qvm-restore-backup --verify-only command.

Should I worry about the quality of my backup ?

Here is my workflow:

1) backup on a USB external drive:

[jl@dom0 bin]$ qvm-backup --compress --encrypt --passphrase-file /home/jl/bin/savequbes.passphrase /run/media/jl/qubes_backup \
debian-9 \
fedora-25 \
fedora-25-dvm \
mail \
media \
trusted \
vault \
dom0 \
sys-net \
sys-firewall

------------------+--------------+--------------+
VM | type | size |
------------------+--------------+--------------+
media | VM | 419.8 MiB |
dom0 | User home | 10.5 MiB |
fedora-25 | Template VM | 4.9 GiB |
sys-net | VM | 100.4 MiB | <-- The VM is running, backup will contain its state from before its start!
sys-firewall | VM | 100.4 MiB | <-- The VM is running, backup will contain its state from before its start!
mail | VM | 580.4 MiB |
vault | VM | 2.7 GiB |
fedora-25-dvm | VM | 156.3 MiB |
trusted | VM | 122.1 MiB |
debian-9 | Template VM | 6.2 GiB |
------------------+--------------+--------------+
Total size: | 15.3 GiB |
------------------+--------------+--------------+
VMs not selected for backup:
- anon-whonix
- debian-8
- sys-whonix
- whonix-gw
- whonix-ws
- whonix-ws-dvm

Do you want to proceed? [y/N] y
2017-11-29 22:35:41,073 [MainProcess selector_events.__init__:65] asyncio: Using selector: EpollSelector
Making a backup... 100.00%

2) the verify option fails

[jl@dom0 ~]$ qvm-backup-restore -p bin/savequbes.passphrase --verify-only /run/media/jl/qubes_backup/qubes-2017-11-29T223541
app: Checking backup content...
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/qvm-backup-restore", line 9, in <module>
load_entry_point('qubesadmin==4.0.9', 'console_scripts', 'qvm-backup-restore')()
File "/usr/lib/python3.5/site-packages/qubesadmin/tools/qvm_backup_restore.py", line 219, in main
appvm, passphrase)
File "/usr/lib/python3.5/site-packages/qubesadmin/backup/restore.py", line 838, in __init__
self.backup_app = self._process_qubes_xml()
File "/usr/lib/python3.5/site-packages/qubesadmin/backup/restore.py", line 1237, in _process_qubes_xml
backup_app = Core3Qubes(qubes_xml_path)
File "/usr/lib/python3.5/site-packages/qubesadmin/backup/core3.py", line 60, in __init__
super(Core3Qubes, self).__init__(store)
File "/usr/lib/python3.5/site-packages/qubesadmin/backup/__init__.py", line 33, in __init__
self.load()
File "/usr/lib/python3.5/site-packages/qubesadmin/backup/core3.py", line 159, in load
self.import_core3_vm(element)
File "/usr/lib/python3.5/site-packages/qubesadmin/backup/core3.py", line 134, in import_core3_vm
vm.label = self.labels[vm.properties.pop('label')]
KeyError: 'red'

3) I managed to check manually the validity of the backup with this article:

https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/backup-emergency-restore-v4/

Jean-Luc

[Chris Laprise]

On 11/29/2017 05:43 PM, Jean-Luc Duriez wrote:
> Hello Qubists
>
> I currently use Qubes R4 RC2, and would like to upgrade to RC3 after a backup. But I experience problems with the qvm-restore-backup --verify-only command.
>
> Should I worry about the quality of my backup ?

Hi,

I created issue #3303 about this.

I've started to fix the code, and can verify backups already. So far all
my backups appear to be OK, so I think qvm-backup is creating the backup
files correctly.

--

Chris Laprise, tas...@posteo.net
https://github.com/tasket
https://twitter.com/ttaskett
PGP: BEE2 20C5 356E 764A 73EB 4AB3 1DC4 D106 F07F 1886

[Jean-Luc Duriez]

Thanks for your feedback.

Same issue when I try to verify the backup on a freshly installed 4RC3 system.

More annoyingly, the standard restore does not work neither with the same error, so at this time we cannot restore any backup in a Qubes 4 based system. So I am going to be careful and save my AppVM datas with an alternate method in the meantime.

[Franz]

On Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 10:02 PM, Chris Laprise <tas...@posteo.net> wrote:

On 11/29/2017 05:43 PM, Jean-Luc Duriez wrote:

Hello Qubists

I currently use Qubes R4 RC2, and would like to upgrade to RC3 after a backup. But I experience problems with the qvm-restore-backup --verify-only command.

Should I worry about the quality of my backup ?

How is the USB drive formatted? For me it does not work reliably with NTFS (that is how they sell these drives), but if I format my USB drive to ext3 it works.

Best

Fran

[Jean-Luc Duriez]

Interesting. The drive is itself encrypted (LUKS+ext4), I take this extra care is taken because it is stored outside my home.
So as a first step I mount mount it and enter the LUKS key, and I make sure I can browse and read the backup files normally.

Jean-Luc