MAAS backup and restore documentation omits permission preservation

[Kellen Renshaw]

The MAAS docs for backup and restore at https://docs.ubuntu.com/maas/2.2/en/manage-backup have a note reminding you to ensure the permissions are correct on the restored files. However, the commands given to copy the files back do not preserve the permissions.

It might be better to use the "-p" flag on cp and tar commands given to ensure that the permissions are preserved.

This also affects the 2.1 and 2.0 versions of the documentation.

For reference, this is an example that I used to successfully restore a MAAS server:
sudo reboot
# Install MAAS
sudo apt install maas
# Extract backup, preserving permissions
sudo tar xvzpf backup.tgz
# Stop MAAS services prior to restore
sudo systemctl stop maas-dhcpd
sudo systemctl stop maas-rackd
sudo systemctl stop maas-regiond
# Restore MAAS DB
sudo -u postgres psql -f maas_db.sql postgres
# Backup "new" MAAS config, just in case
sudo mv /etc/maas /etc/_maas
sudo mv /var/lib/maas /var/lib/_maas
# Restore previous MAAS configuration
sudo cp -prf var/lib/maas /var/lib/
sudo cp -prf etc/maas /etc
# Verify MAAS services start on boot correctly
sudo reboot

[Graham Morrison (morrisong)]

Thanks for this. I've duplicated the issue on the docs GH repo and we'll update the docs asap:

https://github.com/CanonicalLtd/maas-docs/issues/580

[Newell Jensen (newell-jensen)]

Graham,

Marking as fix committed as this has already merged. Thanks!