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Richard

- Richard
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Thu Mar 01, 2012 4:39 pm

## Refracta-7.2 snapshot builds 17MB only.

Wed Oct 30, 2013 1:50 pm

Good morning,
Trying to make a snapshot of my running Refracta-7.2-32 install on a 41 GB partition with 28 GB free,
using the included Refracta Snapshot.
1st run with defaults terminated no error and built a 17 MB iso in /snapshot.
2nd run with defaults terminated no error and built a 0 MB iso in /snapshot.
umount'ed everything that seemed unnecessary
3rd run with defaults terminated no error and built a 17 MB iso in /snapshot
and with /work visible which contains 7.3 GB.
So, it seems I'm doing something wrong.
I haven't tried to boot the 17 MB iso
but I'm installing Virtualbox to see if it will run.
I would appreciate some tips on how to go about building a snapshot?
Should I download the other Snapshot or is it mainly for use in other distros?
And, BTW, thanks for this nice, stable distro.
Everything else works to perfection.
Thanks,
Richard.
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2101
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Refracta-7.2 snapshot builds 17MB only.

Wed Oct 30, 2013 2:10 pm

You can thank the debian team for the nice stable distro. All we did was a remix and add a few extra tools.
The usual cause for the small iso is running out of space. Check (and post) /var/log/refractasnapshot_errors.log.
I'm not sure what you mean by "the other snapshot". 9.0.9-5 is in the current isos (refracta-7.2). I think 9.0.2 is still on my github, but that was for squeeze. I'd have to look at the changelogs and/or comb through the code to tell you the differences. (fewer features and fewer things excluded, mainly.)
Tips for making a snapshot - it should work without doing anything special, but it's worth reading through the excludes file and the config file, and editing them as needed. If an option seems confusing, you can probably leave it alone.
I can't recall if we ever determined the maximum size that mksquashfs or genisoimage will allow. We did have a discussion about that last year. Do try to keep it small. If you want to back up all your data, there are better ways.
Edit: There were a couple of discussions a year ago about using --allow-limited-size in the genisoimage command, and it was added to, and still is part of the script.
Richard

- Richard
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Thu Mar 01, 2012 4:39 pm

## Re: Refracta-7.2 snapshot builds 17MB only.

Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:02 pm

Thanks for the remix.
Here's the error log:

Code:
  `tee: /dev/fd/63: Broken pipe
  rm: cannot remove `/home/work/iso/pkglist*': No such file or directory
  yad: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :0.0.
  tee: /dev/fd/63: Broken pipe`

Maybe I unmounted too much?
I saw Snapshot listed on the download page but didn't read it closely;
assuming it was included as you mentioned. Just wondering if it was a later version.
OK, I was trying to keep all data and other mounts out of it, but maybe overlooked something.
So, it isn't necessary to umount other partitions; that is what excludes does.
Thanks for the tips. I'll read through excludes again.
PS: I want to get this working before I ask about backport kernel.
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2101
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Refracta-7.2 snapshot builds 17MB only.

Wed Oct 30, 2013 3:51 pm

You should unmount any partitions that aren't needed. (If /home is on a separate partition, you should NOT unmount it.) The excludes file will exclude anything that's mounted under /mnt or /media, but anything mounted in other places will get copied.
The error about the missing package list is normal if you're not re-running snapshot with a saved work directory. You can ignore that one.
The other errors seem to be related to yad and tee. The latter is only used for the progress bar windows, which are from yad. I haven't seen those errors before. A workaround would be to run refractasnapshot (not refractasnapshot-gui) in a root terminal.
Are you running i386 or amd64? I downgraded yad in amd64 to 0.20.3 (from 0.21.0) because the author's website lists the older version for wheezy. I wouldn't expect that to cause a problem, but I guess it's possible that something got left over. The i386 build never got the newer one.
Both the installer and snapshot tools should work with the backports kernel. Just be sure that /vmlinuz and /initrd.img symlinks are pointing to the right files you want to use.
Found this. Not sure if it's relevant.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1574 ... ubstituion
Richard

- Richard
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Thu Mar 01, 2012 4:39 pm

## Re: Refracta-7.2 snapshot builds 17MB only.

Wed Oct 30, 2013 5:03 pm

OK. Unmount any partitions that are not in /media or /mnt.
Home is on root.
I have yad-0.20.3-1 installed in "refracta_7.2_i386-20131020_0352.iso"
Stackoverflow seems to mean that it is not a relevant error.
Maybe the error occurs before the tee error?
I'll try again this afternoon in a root terminal to see what info that yields.
Thanks.
PS: I'll start another thread about the backport kernel. :}
Richard

- Richard
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Thu Mar 01, 2012 4:39 pm

## Re: Refracta-7.2 snapshot builds 17MB only.

Wed Oct 30, 2013 6:25 pm

this is what the 17 MB produces in VirtualBox:
but it goes no further.... (blurry because it's reduced to load faster)
Will try running from root terminal this afternoon.
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2101
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Refracta-7.2 snapshot builds 17MB only.

Thu Oct 31, 2013 3:04 am

17MB is the size of the iso I get when I comment out the rsync line that copies the filesystem, so that I can test changes in the boot menu. It's in the copy_filesystem function, around line 400 (in the one that's currently in my text editor. Looks like this:

Code:
  `# Copy the filesystem
  copy_filesystem () {
  rsync -av / myfs/ --delete-excluded --exclude="$work_dir" \
  --exclude="$snapshot_dir" --exclude-from="$snapshot_excludes" \
  | tee >($DIALOG --title="Copying filesystem..." --progress --pulsate --auto-close --width 300)
  }`

Another thing you could try (if you don't mind) is to run the script in debug mode and post the full error log. In a root terminal:

Code:
  `refractasnapshot-gui -d`

(You might need to pastebin it, if it's too big to post here. Let me know if you need help with that.
Richard

- Richard
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Thu Mar 01, 2012 4:39 pm

## Re: Refracta-7.2 snapshot builds 17MB only.

Thu Oct 31, 2013 3:20 am

Thanks for all your suggestions.
I'm on the road tomorrow until 9-Nov.
with the company laptop, my netbook and my pen drives.
I'll try the snapshot on those next week, but this one will have to wait until I return.
I'll try to run in the terminal now.
Richard

- Richard
- Posts: 19
- Joined: Thu Mar 01, 2012 4:39 pm

## Re: Refracta-7.2 snapshot builds 17MB only.

Thu Oct 31, 2013 3:29 am

Yep, I think I see the problem.
I need to work on the excludes.
Thanks again.
I will try it on my old Acer One this weekend. It's a good test bed.
regards.
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