USB died and new USB dying again! Moving to SSD/Flash!

[Viktor Jaep]

What's the best way to make a 1:1 copy of the USB stick to an SSD?

(Either on the router itself or on my MacBook Air M1)

As long as you keep the label the same going from the USB stick to the SSD, then you could use BACKUPMON...

1.) Backup your USB stick to an external location
2.) Remove USB stick
3.) Attach new SSD... format it with AMTM, assign it the same exact label.
4.) Follow the BACKUPMON restore instructions
5.) Profit.

 

[XIII]

wow, prices have gone up on those SSDs

Indeed.

I might be buying at the wrong moment in the "pork cycle"... (is that the English term for it?)

 

[XIII]

As long as you keep the label the same going from the USB stick to the SSD, then you could use BACKUPMON...

Oh, nice, didn't think of your tool...

My mount point is "/mnt/usb".

Can I rename this (to "/mnt/ssd") after the restore?

(What will break if I change the label?)

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Oh, nice, didn't think of your tool...

My mount point is "/mnt/usb".

Can I rename this (to "/mnt/ssd") after the restore?

(What will break if I change the label?)

I would continue naming it "usb" for restore purposes... then change it to "ssd" after you're satisfied everything made it over in one piece. BACKUPMON needs that label to stay the same for the restore.

 

[XIII]

I would continue naming it "usb" for restore purposes... then change it to "ssd" after you're satisfied everything made it over in one piece. BACKUPMON needs that label to stay the same for the restore.

That's what I tried to say above (or did?).

Is it safe to rename this after the restore? Or do I need to update it in multiple places?

(I currently can think of the swap file path in amtm, but I'm not sure yet where else)

 

[Viktor Jaep]

That's what I tried to say above (or did?).

Lol... you did.

Is it safe to rename this after the restore? Or do I need to update it in multiple places?

(I currently can think of the swap file path in amtm, but I'm not sure yet where else)

Yes, I've done it before. I don't remember what I did with the swap... if it just continued working, or if I just had to recreate it.

 

[Tech9]

I might be buying at the wrong moment

It doesn't matter much. We are talking about some small € differences here. You're not buying real estate.

 

[aex.perez]

Sorry for your troubles. Curious thou, what trick did you do to get out of that wifi "auto" settings?

I set the 5Ghz to not AX, then to 20Mhz, apply save, then I could change to what I currently have it set to .

One of the empty channels unsed in my immediate area...
But in all honesty, I was in the middle of fixing the mess and trying to put humpty dumpty together again so don't hold me to it.
But I do vividly remember that I did mess with the settings, apply and save and them I could change the Control Channel, not Extension just not 100% on what I changed them to, to get it though

 

[aex.perez]

The End

So after some exhaustive testing, trying any and everything I could think of over the last few days. I didn't see, or capture and likely will never know or capture what triggered the meltdown or why, just the when it started, the how and what got impacted or corrupted, but not the triggering event.

What could possiblly cause a partial HW reset to occur contiously over 12 hours wiping the Router config, jffs, USB, nvram and partially and restoring it continously over that time, corrupting and confusing everything and every device along the way?

Well, I've tried heat (removed fan for a few days, but never get warm enough to even be an issue or concern), Power didn't blink or even brown out (other devices would've complained as well and none did), swapped power bricks between the AX86u's and the AX88u (round robin to cycles them through each over a few days) and nothing. Wasn't the USB as I'm actively using it as my secondary target for BACKUPMON and since I used FAT, I use the Heatlh Scanner via the GUI to check it (at first daily, now weekly not at the same time as BACKUPMON uses it as it disables writes when it runs). Router and Nodes memory passed every run of the mtd_check tool, with no or just a couple of bad blocks on one node.

Then I checked if maybe something shifted physically and caused the HW reset, continously over a 12Hr period, and back to the running config every few minutes. But nothing did and the Router and everything near it is in the same position as it has been and no physical contact where there shouldn't be. Not hacked, nothing exposed, nothing outside of the Router having a similar issue, every device exhaustively scanned and reviewed.

Long story short, chalking it up to bad luck.

The positives from this being;

1. Move to SSD.
2. Enhancing my recovery posture, strengthening BACKUPMON (retention, and using a secondary target).
3. Refreshing my config notes to have it at the ready if recovery is ever an issue.
4. The documenting of the exercise of putting it all back together from scratch, eventually serving as the baseline when getting to a 3006 capable router and nodes with now compatible scripts.
5. Getting over my want (purely want, not need) of supporting 6Ghz.

These are consumer level/based devices and I don't have the capability or could ever come close to justifying the time or expense to develope the capability with more extensive or a collect method of any more data that could possibly answer (but still not guaranteed) the "why" or if it would make any real difference if it did. Just adapt, overcome and accept what it is and do what you can to avoid the headaches if or when, it ever happens again.

Just happy to be running stable and a 100% functional again, The End

 

[Tech9]

These are consumer level/based devices

One router and two wired nodes will work pretty reliably without any of the complications you introduce every time. As you have noticed none of the monitoring and backups you do saved the day. Simple solutions work better. See you at next crash.

 

[aex.perez]

One router and two wired nodes will work pretty reliably without any of the complications

By that definition, running anything other than stock ASUSWRT and plugging in Ethernet cables is a complication... I get you though, don't think I don't.

Though nothing directly in my case or indirectly points to anything software/hardware related or any external influence either. Other than a lighting strike roasting a pair of 5300's I had and gifted to a family friend a decade ago, have never had a blow up of this magnitude with my setup. Though have had something of this magnitude happen at a campus level with IBM, Bay Networks/Nortel, Cisco and a few others in and out of networking equipment with a significantly larger impact.

Sure a few bumps along the way, I won't disagree but as they have happened the evolution of the Software/Hardware eventually balances out. It's just a matter of determing where you sit on this curve and your tolerance of pain for lack of a better terms. and the value you recieve.

 

[degrub]

it just wanted some attention

 

[Tech9]

It's just a matter of determing where you sit on this curve

This curve is unrelated to the problem I see. And the problem is in your signature:

- automatic unattended firmware upgrades are not recommended in general
- there is nothing much to backup there and it can be done in a simple manual way
- with no services open to Internet IP-blocker of something already blocked is useless
- even with services open to Internet this specific blocker is mostly useless for protection
- with bandwidth exceeding typical family use constant monitoring is mostly waste of time
- the next script is making more trouble than good and is advised by RMerlin himself not to use
- when and if the connection drops or deteriorates you'll know without opening the GUI
- upstream time servers are accurate enough for the needs of home network and devices
- the last script is inaccurate with NAT acceleration enabled, which you do have enabled
- no one else has any benefit from any of this except you feeding your monitoring obsession

I'm sorry @aex.perez, but you have to let it go at some point. This monitoring and logging is getting out of control up to the point of hurting your family members' user experience. And they may not be very happy about you tracking every single connection and bit of data going in or out of their devices.

 

[sfx2000]

The Router is not a NAS, all told...

For add-ons and logging, a decently sized USB flash drive is good enough... link here is a half-terabyte...

Amazon.com