Recently I swapped my primary disk for another one. (on a Thinkpad X230 running Arch Linux)

Since I am using an uncommon setup, I thought it would be nice to document the process.

So this article is about cloning an ecrypted zfs partition.

Maybe I could just dd one to the other, but I am moving to a smalled disk (hopefully with better reliability).

Setup

I use one disk with two primary partions :

  1. One 4GB as /boot
  2. The rest as an encrypted partiotion which contains ZFS.

Process overview

  1. Create the corresponding new partitions on the new disk.
  2. Cloning the ZFS using zfs send and zfs recv.
  3. Installing grub on the new disk.
  4. Swaping the old with the new disk.

The process detailed

Initialy, on my old disk I took a snapshot.

zfs snapshot -r zrt/r@201707_16

Now, on to the new disk:

After I created two partitions (using fdisk, the first marked as boot) I went on to :

  1. Create an encrypted partiotion using cryptsetup
  2. Create a new pool using the encryped partiotion
  3. Copy the old snapshot (zfsz2/flash_2017@201707_16) to the new filesystem (sanzrt/r)
cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdj2 
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdj2 sanzrt       
zpool create sanzrt /dev/dm-0      
zfs send -Rv zfsz2/flash_2017@201707_16 | zfs recv -v  sanzrt/r

Continuing on the new disk:

  1. Create the boot partiotion
  2. Copy all files of the old boot partiotion to the new one
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1
cp -Rva /boot/* /mnt/external/

After having copied the zfs filesystem, I import the new filesystem under a different directory (/mnt/external instead of /)

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdb2 sanzrt
#Enter passphrase for /dev/sdb2: 
zpool import sanzrt -R /mnt/external

I mount the new boot under the /mnt/external/boot

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/external/boot
arch-chroot /mnt/external/
grub-install /dev/disk/by-id/usb-SanDisk_SDSSDXPS480G_M6116A016V20-0\:0
#Installing for i386-pc platform.
#Installation finished. No error reported.
#At this point I had to edit the fstab (/boot was pointing to old device)
sync
exit
umount /mnt/external/boot/
zpool export sanzrt

Shutdown, replace the old with the new disk and PowerOn!