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    1. 10

      Nice to see other attempts than what I usually do:

      Instead of device unit files, fstab, crypttab generated stuff, I mainly just use udev rules, a systemd service to track and log execution and a simple script.

      Literally looks like:

      % cat /etc/udev/rules.d/99-backup-hd.rules 
      ACTION=="add" \
      , SUBSYSTEM=="block" \
      , TAG+="systemd" \
      , ENV{ID_FS_UUID}=="4a823890-8f07-411e-933e-e73004b02066" \
      , ENV{UDISKS_IGNORE}="1" \
      , ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}+="sys-backup.service
      
      % systemctl cat sys-backup.service
      # /etc/systemd/system/sys-backup.service
      [Unit]
      Description=Do full system backup on harddrive insertion
      # I can disable backing up by removing this file
      ConditionPathExists=/etc/run-backup
      
      [Service]
      User=root
      Type=oneshot
      ExecStart=/bin/sh /usr/local/sbin/sys-backup.sh
      
      % cat /usr/local/sbin/sys-backup.sh
      #!/bin/sh
      set -e
      disk_uuid=4a823890-8f07-411e-933e-e73004b02066
      cryptsetup open \
          --key-file /root/storage-keys/usb-"$disk_uuid".key \
          /dev/disk/by-uuid/"$disk_uuid" \
          luks-backup-"$disk_uuid"
      mount -o compress=zstd /dev/mapper/luks-backup-"$disk_uuid" /backup
      btrfs-sxbackup run / /home /var
      umount /backup
      cryptsetup close luks-backup-"$disk_uuid"
      udisksctl power-off -b \
          /dev/disk/by-uuid/"$disk_uuid"
      

      The tricky thing with udev rules comes down to syntactic mistakes like assignment vs binary operator equality, ordering of rules and what environments they produce. It took me a nontrivial amount of time to learn that ENV{ID_FS_UUID} is only set in later rules. I wish udev would be updated with explicit “requires/provides” like syntax instead of trying to guess which glob sort order I have to contend with.

      1. 1

        That’s…that’s a really smart solution. Nice.

        If I ever buy an external harddrive again I’ll probably steal this idea and implement for my FreeBSD storage box.

    2. 3

      That’s a pretty cool solution. One thing I’d add to this service would be a “Nice” option so whatever you’re doing after connecting the drive is not affected too much by the process.