Description

How to recover from the error observed during snapshot from USB to Compact-Flash on SRX-5800 firewall.

Symptoms

This applies to the following Junos platforms.

  • SRX-5800

On a SRX Series device, you can configure the primary or secondary boot device with a “snapshot” of the current configuration, default factory configuration, or rescue configuration.
With the dual-root partitioning scheme, performing a snapshot to a USB storage device that is less than 1 GB is not supported.
While we will trying to copy back to CF (Compact Flash) from USB on a SRX 5800 firewall, it may report the following error: 
{secondary:node1}
root@a> request system snapshot media compact-flash partition
node0:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
error: cannot snapshot to current boot device ----------------------------    No USB connected to node 0  
node1:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clearing current label...
Partitioning compact-flash media (ad0) ...
Partitions on snapshot:

Partition Mountpoint Size Snapshot argument
a / 899MB root-size
e /config 99MB config-size
Running newfs (899MB) on compact-flash media / partition (ad0s1a)...
Running newfs (99MB) on compact-flash media /config partition (ad0s1e)...
Copying '/dev/da0s1a' to '/dev/ad0s1a' .. (this may take a few minutes)
error: timeout waiting for response from node1 error: timeout waiting for response from node1

Solution

Actually, snapshot from USB to CF card does work, but it needs more time then the defined timeout.
When the time fired, the error message pops up while the snapshot is still working on background.

We can verify it from shell prompt. 

root@a% ps auxwfH | grep dump
root 42 0.0 0.0 0 12 ?? IL 9:57AM 0:00.00 [kern_dump_proc]
root 1569 0.0 0.1 1960 1392 ?? I 10:06AM 0:00.15 dump -h 0 -0uf - /dev/da0s1a (dump)
root 1581 0.0 0.1 2088 1492 ?? S 10:09AM 0:01.51 dump: /dev/da0s1a: pass 4: 71.79% done, finished in 0:04 at Wed Jun 8
root 1582 0.0 0.1 1960 1416 ?? DL 10:09AM 0:00.58 dump -h 0 -0uf - /dev/da0s1a (dump)
root 1583 0.0 0.1 1960 1416 ?? DL 10:09AM 0:00.59 dump -h 0 -0uf - /dev/da0s1a (dump)
root 1584 0.0 0.1 1960 1416 ?? DL 10:09AM 0:00.59 dump -h 0 -0uf - /dev/da0s1a (dump)
root 1631 0.0 0.0 1756 1020 d0 S+ 10:20AM 0:00.00 grep dump
From the above output, we can see that only 71% is done but the time out fired before that. So it may take 5 more minutes to complete successfully. Once it will complete the following message should pop-up. 
root@a% ps auxwfH | grep dump
root 42 0.0 0.0 0 12 ?? IL 9:57AM 0:00.00 [kern_dump_proc]
root 1690 0.0 0.1 1620 1120 ?? DL 10:24AM 0:00.02 dump: /dev/da0s1e: pass 1: regular files (dump)
root 1694 0.0 0.0 1756 1020 d0 S+ 10:24AM 0:00.00 grep dump