GELI disk corrupted or external influence?

[Anon Loli]

Hello mailing list!
I've had an event which includes modifying some BIOS settings (can't
remember which exactly), and testing some OS other than FreeBSD.

And I think that the said OS did something malicious to the disk in
question because it has been doing it for prolonged period of time, and
mentioned disks..

So this was all on same machine, like dual-booting but from another
drive.

Then when I went back into FreeBSD I noticed an error, `geli attach`
doesn't work, I used a /etc/rc.local script for the GELI disk like so:
`geli attach -p -k /etc/diskpassword.key /dev/ada0
zpool import zmedia`

geli: Cannot read metadata from /dev/ada0: Invalid argument.

I have /var/backupts/ada.eli if that can help..
There's only /dev/ada0, no ada0s1 for example or .eli or whatever..
Also when running `gpart show`, I see 2 disks:
xxx GPT (main boot drive)
freebsd-boot
freebsd-swap
freebsd-zfs

and
ada0 GPT (the drive in problem)
-free- (everything)


Does this indicate that everything has been lost, like the partitioning
table or whatever you call it, like it has been formatted?
Did the other evil OS-fucker destroy my disk without saying it would do
that?


If you can't tell, I'm hesitant to give more information than what's
necessary for someone to help me because almost any data can be used to
deanonymize someone, but if you do need some information, please feel
free to ask.


TL;DR: some OS could have wiped some part of a FreeBSD-zfs drive, can
you help me conclude wether or not we can somehow save it?


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[Anon Loli]

Oh, I immediately tried this `geli restore /var/backups/ada0.eli ada0`
and it got fixed! :)

What broke this? Some BIOS setting change or the other OS deleted
something?
In any case I can finally move to OpenBSD lol bye (I'm still curious as
to who broke it, it's an older FreeBSD install if it matters)

Post by Anon Loli
Hello mailing list!
I've had an event which includes modifying some BIOS settings (can't
remember which exactly), and testing some OS other than FreeBSD.
And I think that the said OS did something malicious to the disk in
question because it has been doing it for prolonged period of time, and
mentioned disks..
So this was all on same machine, like dual-booting but from another
drive.
Then when I went back into FreeBSD I noticed an error, `geli attach`
`geli attach -p -k /etc/diskpassword.key /dev/ada0
zpool import zmedia`

geli: Cannot read metadata from /dev/ada0: Invalid argument.

I have /var/backupts/ada.eli if that can help..
There's only /dev/ada0, no ada0s1 for example or .eli or whatever..
xxx GPT (main boot drive)
freebsd-boot
freebsd-swap
freebsd-zfs
and
ada0 GPT (the drive in problem)
-free- (everything)
Does this indicate that everything has been lost, like the partitioning
table or whatever you call it, like it has been formatted?
Did the other evil OS-fucker destroy my disk without saying it would do
that?
If you can't tell, I'm hesitant to give more information than what's
necessary for someone to help me because almost any data can be used to
deanonymize someone, but if you do need some information, please feel
free to ask.
TL;DR: some OS could have wiped some part of a FreeBSD-zfs drive, can
you help me conclude wether or not we can somehow save it?

--
Posted automagically by a mail2news gateway at muc.de e.V.
Please direct questions, flames, donations, etc. to news-***@muc.de

[Dewayne Geraghty]

Hi Anon,
"geli restore $dev" recovers the last sector (512B) of the partition from
its backup, usually located in /var/backup. If you recovered access via a
restore then something has written into it. I've used geli since 2006 on a
large number of systems, when there's been a problem its due to my learning
(by my mistake). :)

openbsd is an excellent choice. Though it would be very helpful if you
could detail the steps that caused your negative experiences so the FreeBSD
dev's can improve and help others, as this is a community effort :) I
set locale and keymap and haven't experienced problems; but my requirements
are very simple.

There is a bug reporting system at
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/enter_bug.cgi
Kind regards, Dewayne.