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Disaster Recovery

Goals

  • Restore system functionality quickly
  • Preserve critical data
  • Minimize downtime

Common Failure Scenarios

  • System fails to boot
  • Network or DNS outage
  • Service crash or misconfiguration
  • Disk or filesystem corruption
  • Accidental deletion or overwrite

Recovery Procedure

1. Boot into Recovery Environment

  • Use Arch ISO / Live USB
  • Ensure internet connectivity
ip a
ping -c 3 archlinux.org

2. Mount Existing System

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt          # Root
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot     # EFI
Adjust device names as required.

3. Chroot into Installed System

arch-chroot /mnt

4. Repair Bootloader (UEFI)

bootctl install
OR (GRUB): 
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

5. Network & DNS Recovery

systemctl restart NetworkManager
resolvectl status
DNS test: 
dig google.com

6. Restore from Backup

rsync-based restore 

rsync -aAXv /backup/rootfs/ /mnt/

tar archive restore 

tar -xpvf backup.tar.gz -C /mnt

7. Verify System Services

systemctl --failed
systemctl status sshd

8. Reboot System

exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot

Prevention & Best Practices

Scheduled Backups 

rsync -aAX --delete / /backup/rootfs/
Snapshot (Btrfs) 
btrfs subvolume snapshot / /@snapshot-pre-upgrade
Health Monitoring :

  • Disk usage: df -h
  • Disk health: smartctl -a /dev/sda
  • Critical logs: journalctl -p 3 -xb

🧠 Reminder

If you haven’t tested recovery, you don’t have a backup — you have hope.