FreeNAS Encryption Assistance - Mount USB

[rustikles]

To preface: I am a terrible human being and should feel bad.

 

If you're familiar with the system, freenas is typically run off of a USB device which can easily be replaced in the event of failure. I have periodic backups of all system settings, so there's no issue in that respect. However, I also set up encryption on all my drive a while back. Being a good little server admin (personal equipment here, not business), I downloaded recovery keys in the event that I forgot the encryption password for some reason. (Some of you may be cringing at the realization of what I've done -or not done-).

 

Skip ahead to today. USB stick starts to have issues and won't boot due to a mangled root partition (a bystander inadvententially unplugged it :mellow:). Although, despite knowing the password to decrypt the drives, you also need to have the geli key for auto-import of encrypted devices. Basically, I messed up and didn't back up all the proper files.

 

 

All that is to ask this: How can I mount the partitions on my previous freenas usb drive to copy the geli key I need?

[Vitalius]

-snip-

Question: Have you asked this question on the FreeNAS forums yet? They are here: forums.freenas.org I would ask under: Help & Support > Storage.

I don't know much about Encryption and I don't know of a way to fix a "mangled root partition", which I'd imagine is a requirement to mounting the partitions. 

They might. If you are screwed however, they will probably be very "Well, you should've known better." They can be harsh when it comes to basic things, though not always.

[rustikles]

Question: Have you asked this question on the FreeNAS forums yet? They are here: forums.freenas.org I would ask under: Help & Support > Storage.

I don't know much about Encryption and I don't know of a way to fix a "mangled root partition", which I'd imagine is a requirement to mounting the partitions. 

They might. If you are screwed however, they will probably be very "Well, you should've known better." They can be harsh when it comes to basic things, though not always.

I did go on their forums as well, but before they could respond, I got it to work . It's hard to explain the stress off of my shoulders now. I don't even want to talk about how much anime I could have lost.

 

For reference: I found a utility called UFS Explorer which allowed me to browse the remaining intact files on my usb drive. From there, I followed suggestions from past freenas forum postings to find the .key file on the fourth partition under /geli. Once copied, it was a simple matter to replace the same location on my new usb with the files I recovered.

 

Moral of the story: Make backups and recovery files for everything before you go changing settings.