Cloning and Restoring Ubuntu System with LUKS Encryption

Prerequisite:

• Boot your computer with a Live Ubuntu USB.
• Ensure you're not inside the running installation. Use the Live USB environment to access your internal drive, referred to as the "source."

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Creating the Backup

1. Open Source LUKS Container

Use the following steps to open your LUKS-encrypted container:

List all devices to identify your source disk.

1. df take note of the right /dev/sdX of the hard disk to clone
2. sudo cryptsetup open /dev/sdX source_crypt

Replace /dev/sdX with your source disk's identifier.

2. Mount Source Filesystem

Mount the source disk's filesystem to /mnt/source:

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/source sudo mount /dev/mapper/source_crypt /mnt/source

3. Prepare Destination Drive

• use lsblk to see all the connected devices and take note of the identifier of your external drive/destination disk
• If your external (backup) drive is new, go to step 4.
• If you're updating an existing backup, go to step 5.

4. NEW EXTERNAL DRIVE: Initialize Destination LUKS Container

Format the new drive with LUKS encryption and open it:

sudo cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdY # Replace /dev/sdY with your destination disk's identifier. sudo cryptsetup open /dev/sdY destination_crypt

After this, skip to step 6.

5. EXISTING EXTERNAL DRIVE: Open Existing LUKS Container

If your external drive is already formatted with LUKS, follow these commands to mount it:

sudo vgchange -ay # Activate LVM - needed to make the system recognize the LUKS filesystem. sudo cryptsetup open /dev/sdc1 external_crypt # Replace /dev/sdc1 with the correct partition. sudo lvscan # Find the LVM partitions (typically vgubuntu/root). sudo mount /dev/vgubuntu/root /mnt/source

6. Mount Destination Filesystem

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/destination sudo mount /dev/mapper/destination_crypt /mnt/destination

7. Rsync Data

Use rsync to clone your source system to the destination. You may remove the --delete option if you do not want to delete files on the destination that no longer exist on the source. Note that this step may take several hours.

sudo rsync -aHAXxv --numeric-ids --delete --info=progress2 /mnt/source/ /mnt/destination/

8. Unmount and Close Containers

When the rsync process is complete, unmount and close both containers:

sudo umount /mnt/source /mnt/destination sudo cryptsetup close source_crypt destination_crypt

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Restoring the Backup to a New Drive

These steps will let you restore the backup from the external drive to an internal hard disk / SSD.

1. Prepare New Disk with LUKS

Format the new drive (internal hard drive for example) with LUKS encryption and open it: df # List all the internal drives, take note of the ID of the one you need to use. The backup will be restored there. This step formats the disk.

sudo cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sdZ # Replace /dev/sdZ with your new disk's identifier. sudo cryptsetup open /dev/sdZ newdisk_crypt

2. Mount New Disk Filesystem

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/newdisk sudo mount /dev/mapper/newdisk_crypt /mnt/newdisk

3. Restore Data with Rsync

Use the same rsync command as in the backup process to restore data to the new disk:

sudo rsync -aHAXxv --numeric-ids --info=progress2 /mnt/destination/ /mnt/newdisk/

There is no need to use --delete since the drive will be empty.

4. Chroot into New System

To make the new system bootable, you'll need to chroot into it and reinstall GRUB:

for dir in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /run; do sudo mount --bind $dir /mnt/newdisk$dir; done

sudo chroot /mnt/newdisk

5. Install and Update GRUB

grub-install /dev/sdZ # Replace /dev/sdZ with your new disk's identifier. update-grub

6. Update /etc/fstab

Within the chroot environment, update /etc/fstab:

1. Use blkid to list the UUID and find the UUIDs of the new disk's partitions. This command will output something like:

/dev/sda1: UUID="d1f2fcd6-02ef-4ad6-9f08-bf282f2547f2" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="3b1f6f3e-01" /dev/sda2: UUID="7156-9B0D" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="3b1f6f3e-02" /dev/sda3: UUID="68bc7263-b28c-4735-b62e-295c3dd9eb9e" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="3b1f6f3e-03"

• /dev/sda1: This could be your root (/) partition, with the UUID="d1f2fcd6-02ef-4ad6-9f08-bf282f2547f2".
• /dev/sda2: This might be your EFI partition (if using UEFI boot), with UUID="7156-9B0D".
• /dev/sda3: This could be your swap partition with its unique UUID.

Take note of these UUIDs for the partitions on your new disk.

2. Open /etc/fstab with an editor (e.g., nano or vi):

nano /etc/fstab It will look more or less like this

# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
UUID=old-root-uuid  /      ext4  errors=remount-ro  0       1
UUID=old-efi-uuid   /boot/efi  vfat  defaults         0       1
UUID=old-swap-uuid  none   swap  sw                 0       0

3. Replace the old UUIDs with the new ones for each partition (root, home, swap, etc.).
4. Save and exit the editor. (ctrl + o to save, crtl +x to exit).

7. Exit Chroot and Unmount

exit # Exit the chroot environment.

for dir in /dev/pts /dev /proc /sys /run; do sudo umount /mnt/newdisk$dir; done

sudo umount /mnt/newdisk

8. Close New Disk's LUKS Container

sudo cryptsetup close newdisk_crypt

Now you should be able to reboot normally into the new disk.