BACKUPMON BACKUPMON v1.8.20 -Oct 12, 2024- Backup/Restore your Router: JFFS + NVRAM + External USB Drive! CIFS/SMB/NFS! (Thread Closed!)

[visortgw]

It's a habit for me to obfuscate anything identifying when writing on public forums

It's just that for private IPs, the info can help others to differentiate between router, devices, guest network, etc. when trying to assist.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

@smarthome-enthusiast & @ColinTaylor & @Jeffrey Young ... my only 3 guys I know of with a functional NFS environment... v1.6.0b3 is available using the link below... I have integrated NFS capabilities across the board. You should have full NFS functionality for primary and secondary backups, primary and secondary restores, primary and secondary purges as well as the test utility. If you are willing and able, was hoping you could please run through it and see if anything else needs to be addressed! Lots of thanks to @smarthome-enthusiast for testing this with me and getting this far... didn't think we'd ever get here!

curl --retry 3 "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ViktorJp/BACKUPMON/develop/backupmon.sh" -o "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh" && chmod 755 "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh"

 

[Jeffrey Young]

@smarthome-enthusiast & @ColinTaylor & @Jeffrey Young ... my only 3 guys I know of with a functional NFS environment... v1.6.0b3 is available using the link below... I have integrated NFS capabilities across the board. You should have full NFS functionality for primary and secondary backups, primary and secondary restores, primary and secondary purges as well as the test utility. If you are willing and able, was hoping you could please run through it and see if anything else needs to be addressed! Lots of thanks to @smarthome-enthusiast for testing this with me and getting this far... didn't think we'd ever get here!

curl --retry 3 "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ViktorJp/BACKUPMON/develop/backupmon.sh" -o "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh" && chmod 755 "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh"

I think you have an amazing product @Viktor Jaep , but I am not using your script. I believe in the KISS approach. I am still using my original script with some modifications (I keep only last 10 backups and use base64 encoded passwords now).

 

[Viktor Jaep]

I think you have an amazing product @Viktor Jaep , but I am not using your script. I believe in the KISS approach. I am still using my original script with some modifications (I keep only last 10 backups and use base64 encoded passwords now).

Lol. Thought I'd give it a whirl... No prob @Jeffrey Young! Thanks to your KISS script, it has grown into the beast it is today... and many have been able to make a clean restore after disaster.

 

[smarthome-enthusiast]

You should have full NFS functionality for primary and secondary backups, primary and secondary restores, primary and secondary purges as well as the test utility. If you are willing and able, was hoping you could please run through it and see if anything else needs to be addressed!

@Viktor Jaep Thanks for the amazing work you've done on this and for being so interactive in this community. Here are my results:

1. Test NFS Mount Options were not asked for when manually configuring (might be useful to others when configuring/optimizing NFS to use different options than the backup config). Importing the primary config worked fine.

2. While testing my Network Backup Target, the script was trying to write to a different directory but flagged it as successful:

/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh: line 1: can't create /tmp/mnt/testbackups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/Test/testfile.txt: nonexistent directory
STATUS: Finished copying testfile.txt to /tmp/mnt/testbackups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/test

3. I was hesitant to try restoring from my perpetual backups as the script wasn't showing the right backup folder (see below). If this is normal, then I'll run it anyway.

Messages:
Available Backup Selections:
Thu Mar 21 07:21:32 2024 /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/20240321-072125/
Thu Mar 21 07:29:15 2024 /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/20240321-072908/

Would you like to continue to restore from backup?
[y/n]? y

Enter the Day # of the backup you wish to restore? (ex: 02 or 27) (e=Exit):
21

WARNING: You will be restoring a backup of your JFFS, the entire contents of your External
USB drive and NVRAM back to their original locations.  You will be restoring from this backup location:
/tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/21/

4. Since I don't have any previous backups, I wasn't able to test purging. But I'll wait a few days for them to accumulate before trying again.

Side note: Am I able to run the restore on the existing EXT as a sort of rollback feature?

 

[Viktor Jaep]

@Viktor Jaep Thanks for the amazing work you've done on this and for being so interactive in this community. Here are my results:

Absolutely! I truly appreciate your time and efforts testing this! It's only making things better!

1. Test NFS Mount Options were not asked for when manually configuring (might be useful to others when configuring/optimizing NFS to use different options than the backup config). Importing the primary config worked fine.

This is fixed. I overlooked the NFS mount options in the test area.

2. While testing my Network Backup Target, the script was trying to write to a different directory but flagged it as successful:

/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh: line 1: can't create /tmp/mnt/testbackups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/Test/testfile.txt: nonexistent directory
STATUS: Finished copying testfile.txt to /tmp/mnt/testbackups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/test

I have added more error checking during the test functionality... please delete any test folders out there in your backup area, and try this again after you load the latest version of the backupmon script?

3. I was hesitant to try restoring from my perpetual backups as the script wasn't showing the right backup folder (see below). If this is normal, then I'll run it anyway.

It sounds to me like you were using perpetual backups, but then may have switched back to Monthly? And there weren't any monthly folders present in that list you sent?

4. Since I don't have any previous backups, I wasn't able to test purging. But I'll wait a few days for them to accumulate before trying again.

Not a problem...

Side note: Am I able to run the restore on the existing EXT as a sort of rollback feature?

And yes! You can do this as a rollback feature. I've inadvertently done this multiple times during the development process by accident, where it restored my jffs/ext USB drive and router cfg before I had a chance to stop it. You can also use this feature to upgrade from a flashdrive to an SSD without any trouble or having to reload anything.

Here's v1.6.0b4:

curl --retry 3 "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ViktorJp/BACKUPMON/develop/backupmon.sh" -o "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh" && chmod 755 "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh"

 

[smarthome-enthusiast]

And yes! You can do this as a rollback feature. I've inadvertently done this multiple times during the development process by accident, where it restored my jffs/ext USB drive and router cfg before I had a chance to stop it. You can also use this feature to upgrade from a flashdrive to an SSD without any trouble or having to reload anything.

That's awesome. This will definitely useful for when I start looking into custom scripts.

I have added more error checking during the test functionality... please delete any test folders out there in your backup area, and try this again after you load the latest version of the backupmon script?

Just tested and it is the same error.

Messages:
INFO: Backup Target (192.168.1.13) reachable via PING.
INFO: External test drive mount point exists. Found under: /tmp/mnt/backups
STATUS: External test drive (192.168.1.13:/volume/TestNFS) mounted successfully under: /tmp/mnt/backups
/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh: line 37: can't create /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/Test/testfile.txt: nonexistent directory
ERROR: Unable to copy testfile.txt to /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/test
STATUS: Settling for 10 seconds...

From my limited understanding Linux, could it be case-sensitive for directory paths? The "test" folder created uses a lowercase "t" while the file creation/line 37 uses an uppercase "T". (Yes, I've stopped obfuscating the IP address )

It sounds to me like you were using perpetual backups, but then may have switched back to Monthly? And there weren't any monthly folders present in that list you sent?

Yes. I was actually using Monthly first but when testing it was just overwriting the backups. So I switched to Perpetual so that I can retain multiple backups for the same day. Is there something else I needed to do when switching over?

Directory:

./Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U:
total 420
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1000 100    190 Mar 21 07:29 .
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1000 100     16 Mar 19 11:54 ..
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1000 100     90 Mar 21 07:21 20240321-072125
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1000 100     90 Mar 21 07:29 20240321-072908
-rw-rw-rw-  1 1000 100    904 Mar 21 07:29 backupmon.cfg
-rwxr-xr-x  1 1000 100 325252 Mar 21 07:29 backupmon.sh
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 1000 100   1179 Mar 21 07:29 instructions.txt
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 1000 100  88633 Mar 21 07:29 nvram.txt
-rw-rw-rw-  1 1000 100     11 Mar 21 07:29 pfexclusion.txt

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Just tested and it is the same error.

Messages:
INFO: Backup Target (192.168.1.13) reachable via PING.
INFO: External test drive mount point exists. Found under: /tmp/mnt/backups
STATUS: External test drive (192.168.1.13:/volume/TestNFS) mounted successfully under: /tmp/mnt/backups
/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh: line 37: can't create /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/Test/testfile.txt: nonexistent directory
ERROR: Unable to copy testfile.txt to /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/test
STATUS: Settling for 10 seconds...

From my limited understanding Linux, could it be case-sensitive for directory paths? The "test" folder created uses a lowercase "t" while the file creation/line 37 uses an uppercase "T". (Yes, I've stopped obfuscating the IP address )

That's probably exactly it... try deleting the test folder out there off your server and start over... let the test script create the /Test folder so that the case is correct... it may just be tripping up on that since it already exists.

Yes. I was actually using Monthly first but when testing it was just overwriting the backups. So I switched to Perpetual so that I can retain multiple backups for the same day. Is there something else I needed to do when switching over?

I would just make sure your settings reflect that you're backing up everything in "perpetual mode", and that you've saved your settings. Then when you go to restore, it should give you the correct prompts to restore from a perpetual backup folder structure.

 

[smarthome-enthusiast]

That's probably exactly it... try deleting the test folder out there off your server and start over... let the test script create the /Test folder so that the case is correct... it may just be tripping up on that since it already exists.

@Viktor Jaep I'll post the testing step by step incase I've missed something:
Here is the directory before:

ls -aln Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/
total 420
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540    220 Mar 21 17:28 .
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540     16 Mar 19 11:54 ..
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540     90 Mar 21 07:21 20240321-072125
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540     90 Mar 21 07:29 20240321-072908
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540     90 Mar 21 16:20 20240321-162008
-rw-rw-rw-  1 1032 65540    910 Mar 21 16:20 backupmon.cfg
-rwxr-xr-x  1 1032 65540 326869 Mar 21 16:20 backupmon.sh
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540   1179 Mar 21 16:20 instructions.txt
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540  88169 Mar 21 16:20 nvram.txt
-rw-rw-rw-  1 1032 65540     11 Mar 21 16:20 pfexclusion.txt

Running the script:

Messages:
INFO: Backup Target (192.168.1.13) reachable via PING.
INFO: External test drive mount point exists. Found under: /tmp/mnt/backups
STATUS: External test drive (192.168.1.13:/volume/TestNFS) mounted successfully under: /tmp/mnt/backups
STATUS: Daily Test Backup Subdirectory successfully created under: /Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/test
/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh: line 37: can't create /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/Test/testfile.txt: nonexistent directory
ERROR: Unable to copy testfile.txt to /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/test
STATUS: Settling for 10 seconds...
STATUS: External test tetwork drive (192.168.1.13:/volume/TestNFS) unmounted successfully.
Press any key to acknowledge...

Directory after:

ls -aln Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/
total 420
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540    228 Mar 21 17:33 .
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540     16 Mar 19 11:54 ..
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540     90 Mar 21 07:21 20240321-072125
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540     90 Mar 21 07:29 20240321-072908
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540     90 Mar 21 16:20 20240321-162008
-rw-rw-rw-  1 1032 65540    910 Mar 21 16:20 backupmon.cfg
-rwxr-xr-x  1 1032 65540 326869 Mar 21 16:20 backupmon.sh
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540   1179 Mar 21 16:20 instructions.txt
-rwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540  88169 Mar 21 16:20 nvram.txt
-rw-rw-rw-  1 1032 65540     11 Mar 21 16:20 pfexclusion.txt
drwxrwxrwx+ 1 1032 65540      0 Mar 21 17:33 test

I think it's looking for /Test while the directory created is /test

I would just make sure your settings reflect that you're backing up everything in "perpetual mode", and that you've saved your settings. Then when you go to restore, it should give you the correct prompts to restore from a perpetual backup folder structure.

You're right. Just reboot my router and now its giving the correct prompts. Restored successfully:

Restoring /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/20240321-173803/jffs.tar.gz to /jffs
Restoring /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/20240321-173803/system.tar.gz to /tmp/mnt/system
No TAR errors detected on restore to /tmp/mnt/system
Restoring /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/20240321-173803/nvram.cfg to NVRAM

STATUS: Backups were successfully restored to their original locations. Forcing reboot now!

 

[Viktor Jaep]

@Viktor Jaep

I think it's looking for /Test while the directory created is /test

You were absolutely correct... my mistake -- I had it exporting to a /Test folder. Your NAS is apparently sensitive enough about case, my windows server doesn't seem to care! Please download this update, and let me know if it now passes this test?

curl --retry 3 "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ViktorJp/BACKUPMON/develop/backupmon.sh" -o "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh" && chmod 755 "/jffs/scripts/backupmon.sh"

You're right. Just reboot my router and now its giving the correct prompts. Restored successfully:

Restoring /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/20240321-173803/jffs.tar.gz to /jffs
Restoring /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/20240321-173803/system.tar.gz to /tmp/mnt/system
No TAR errors detected on restore to /tmp/mnt/system
Restoring /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/20240321-173803/nvram.cfg to NVRAM

STATUS: Backups were successfully restored to their original locations. Forcing reboot now!

Excellent! Thanks for testing that!!

 

[smarthome-enthusiast]

You were absolutely correct... my mistake -- I had it exporting to a /Test folder. Your NAS is apparently sensitive enough about case, my windows server doesn't seem to care! Please download this update, and let me know if it now passes this test?

Works now:

Messages:
INFO: Backup Target (192.168.1.13) reachable via PING.
WARNING: External test drive mount point not set. Created under: /tmp/mnt/backups
STATUS: External test drive (192.168.1.13:/volume/TestNFS) mounted successfully under: /tmp/mnt/backups
STATUS: Daily Test Backup Subdirectory successfully created under: /Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/test
STATUS: Finished copying testfile.txt to /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/test
STATUS: Settling for 10 seconds...
STATUS: External test tetwork drive (192.168.1.13:/volume/TestNFS) unmounted successfully.

@Viktor Jaep Apart from purging (which I haven't tested yet) and swapfile restore (still in use by the system), is there anything else you'd like me to test?

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Works now:

Messages:
INFO: Backup Target (192.168.1.13) reachable via PING.
WARNING: External test drive mount point not set. Created under: /tmp/mnt/backups
STATUS: External test drive (192.168.1.13:/volume/TestNFS) mounted successfully under: /tmp/mnt/backups
STATUS: Daily Test Backup Subdirectory successfully created under: /Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/test
STATUS: Finished copying testfile.txt to /tmp/mnt/backups/Router/ASUSMerlin/RT-AX88U/test
STATUS: Settling for 10 seconds...
STATUS: External test tetwork drive (192.168.1.13:/volume/TestNFS) unmounted successfully.

Perfect! WHOO!

@Viktor Jaep Apart from purging (which I haven't tested yet) and swapfile restore (still in use by the system), is there anything else you'd like me to test?

Purging, and if you could please try Config->Option 15 (Secondary backups), that would be great too? Just point it to the same location, perhaps a different backup folder name... but just want to make sure all that logic works as well. I would not recommend restoring your swapfile. While the option remains there, it's definitely something you would just want to recreate from scratch through AMTM if you ever needed to. It's a transitory file, that takes up a lot of space, and is not useful when restored.

Thanks so much for your help and dedication to this effort!!

 

[smarthome-enthusiast]

Purging, and if you could please try Config->Option 15 (Secondary backups), that would be great too? Just point it to the same location, perhaps a different backup folder name... but just want to make sure all that logic works as well.

Sorry @Viktor Jaep , I forgot to mention that I have backed up to AND restored from secondary NFS (Main NFS Server, different IP) without any issues (without swapfile).

I would not recommend restoring your swapfile. While the option remains there, it's definitely something you would just want to recreate from scratch through AMTM if you ever needed to. It's a transitory file, that takes up a lot of space, and is not useful when restored.

I wanted to try it because I had issues when trying to recreate my 5GB swapfile (I know it's overkill but I've got space to spare so ). It would error out at ~1.2GB. Backing up with it included was successful but restoring errored out with a "permission denied" while overwriting swapfile. I'm 99% sure that is because the swapfile is mounted and in use.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

Sorry @Viktor Jaep , I forgot to mention that I have backed up to AND restored from secondary NFS (Main NFS Server, different IP) without any issues (without swapfile).

Good to know! Thanks so much!

I wanted to try it because I had issues when trying to recreate my 5GB swapfile (I know it's overkill but I've got space to spare so ). It would error out at ~1.2GB. Backing up with it included was successful but restoring errored out with a "permission denied" while overwriting swapfile. I'm 99% sure that is because the swapfile is mounted and in use.

That's exactly the reason... and this may interrupt the restore process itself, which may leave you only partially restored. It was after this incident (below) that we started excluding swap files because of the risk of an incomplete restore:

BACKUPMON - BACKUPMON v1.5.10 -Mar 1, 2024- Backup/Restore your Router: JFFS + NVRAM + External USB Drive! (**Thread closed due to age**)

I use Filezilla. It's in my basic toolkit.

www.snbforums.com

I've got a 5GB swap as well that's never been touched by my router... it's definitely overkill. I might blow it away in the future and just make it 2GB from now on. But I have no idea what all else goes into the creation of it... whether it's referenced elsewhere in different config files or whatnot. To me, it just seems safer to just recreate it when needed as you're getting a new drive/router prepped to restore.

 

[TheLyppardMan]

I wonder if someone could clarify the restore procedure with BACKUPMON for me, so that I would be absolutely sure of what to do next time I need to perform a restore?

I’m asking this because this morning, I was in a hurry and accidentally restored my router to factory defaults, rather than uploading a saved configuration file from a couple of days ago. This was after I had tried running the restore option of BACKUPMON from within amtm, which hadn’t restored the custom names and user icons for many of my network devices, hence why I decided to restore from a configuration file made from within the router’s GUI, albeit after an accidental factory restore as mentioned above.

After I had restored the router from the backed-up configuration file from a couple of days previous, I had to setup amtm again and then reformat my USB flash drive and install the disc-checker script. I haven’t reinstalled BACKUPMON yet; just MerlinAU.

I’m a bit confused because the instructions for restoring backups using BACKUPMON don’t mention amtm, so is that an alternative to the method mentioned in the BACKUPMON instructions file, which seems more complicated? Also, if the answer is “yes”, then would I be right in thinking that after reinstalling BACKUPMON, the first step would still be to copy the two files mentioned in the instructions into the jffs/scripts folder prior to performing a restore, even if restoring from within amtm? Note: one of the two files was already present in the jffs/scripts folder when I checked this morning (I can’t remember whether it was the .cfg or .sh file that I saw in there)? I didn’t actually copy anything, but apart from the missing custom names and icons, the restore seemed to have worked.

 

[Viktor Jaep]

I wonder if someone could clarify the restore procedure with BACKUPMON for me, so that I would be absolutely sure of what to do next time I need to perform a restore?

I’m asking this because this morning, I was in a hurry and accidentally restored my router to factory defaults, rather than uploading a saved configuration file from a couple of days ago. This was after I had tried running the restore option of BACKUPMON from within amtm, which hadn’t restored the custom names and user icons for many of my network devices, hence why I decided to restore from a configuration file made from within the router’s GUI, albeit after an accidental factory restore as mentioned above.

After I had restored the router from the backed-up configuration file from a couple of days previous, I had to setup amtm again and then reformat my USB flash drive and install the disc-checker script. I haven’t reinstalled BACKUPMON yet; just MerlinAU.

I’m a bit confused because the instructions for restoring backups using BACKUPMON don’t mention amtm, so is that an alternative to the method mentioned in the BACKUPMON instructions file, which seems more complicated? Also, if the answer is “yes”, then would I be right in thinking that after reinstalling BACKUPMON, the first step would still be to copy the two files mentioned in the instructions into the jffs/scripts folder prior to performing a restore, even if restoring from within amtm? Note: one of the two files was already present in the jffs/scripts folder when I checked this morning (I can’t remember whether it was the .cfg or .sh file that I saw in there)? I didn’t actually copy anything, but apart from the missing custom names and icons, the restore seemed to have worked.

The only thing you really need AMTM for is to format your EXT USB drive, and get a swap file established.

For everything else, just making sure you have copied the "backupmon.sh" and "backupmon.cfg" files into your /jffs/scripts folder should be enough to kick things off.

Once that's done, you could proceed with "sh backupmon.sh -restore"

The restore instructions are pretty clear I think? Let me know where you think things need more clarification?

RESTORE INSTRUCTIONS

IMPORTANT:
Asus Router Model: GT-AX6000
Firmware/Build Number: 3004.388.6_2
EXT USB Drive Label Name: ASUS-SSD

WARNING: Do NOT attempt to restore if your Asus Router Model or Firmware/Build Numbers differ from your backups!

Please ensure your have performed the following before restoring your backups:
1.) Enable SSH in router UI, and connect via an SSH Terminal (like PuTTY).
2.) Run "AMTM" and format a new USB drive on your router - label it exactly the same name as before (see above)! Reboot.
3.) After reboot, SSH back in to AMTM, create your swap file (if required). This action should automatically enable JFFS.
4.) From the UI, verify JFFS scripting enabled in the router OS, if not, enable and perform another reboot.
5.) Restore the backupmon.sh & backupmon.cfg files (located under your backup folder) into your /jffs/scripts folder.
6.) Run "sh backupmon.sh -setup" and ensure that all of the settings are correct before running a restore.
7.) Run "sh backupmon.sh -restore", pick which backup you want to restore, and confirm before proceeding!
8.) After the restore finishes, perform another reboot.  Everything should be restored as normal!

 

[TheLyppardMan]

The only thing you really need AMTM for is to format your EXT USB drive, and get a swap file established.

For everything else, just making sure you have copied the "backupmon.sh" and "backupmon.cfg" files into your /jffs/scripts folder should be enough to kick things off.

Once that's done, you could proceed with "sh backupmon.sh -restore"

The restore instructions are pretty clear I think? Let me know where you think things need more clarification?

RESTORE INSTRUCTIONS

IMPORTANT:
Asus Router Model: GT-AX6000
Firmware/Build Number: 3004.388.6_2
EXT USB Drive Label Name: ASUS-SSD

WARNING: Do NOT attempt to restore if your Asus Router Model or Firmware/Build Numbers differ from your backups!

Please ensure your have performed the following before restoring your backups:
1.) Enable SSH in router UI, and connect via an SSH Terminal (like PuTTY).
2.) Run "AMTM" and format a new USB drive on your router - label it exactly the same name as before (see above)! Reboot.
3.) After reboot, SSH back in to AMTM, create your swap file (if required). This action should automatically enable JFFS.
4.) From the UI, verify JFFS scripting enabled in the router OS, if not, enable and perform another reboot.
5.) Restore the backupmon.sh & backupmon.cfg files (located under your backup folder) into your /jffs/scripts folder.
6.) Run "sh backupmon.sh -setup" and ensure that all of the settings are correct before running a restore.
7.) Run "sh backupmon.sh -restore", pick which backup you want to restore, and confirm before proceeding!
8.) After the restore finishes, perform another reboot.  Everything should be restored as normal!

So just to confirm:
1) Is there any difference between using the amtm menu in BACKUPMON to restore and using the command in the instructions above?
2) If not using amtm, would I just paste sh backupmon.sh -restore into something like WinSCP, which I already have on my computer, viz;

 

[Viktor Jaep]

So just to confirm:
1) Is there any difference between using the amtm menu in BACKUPMON to restore and using the command in the instructions above?

Can't say I've ever tried that... I guess, theoretically, AMTM would show BACKUPMON as being in existence, since it would be sitting under the /jffs/scripts folder... but I would be assuming someone would be using SSH (like PuTTY) to execute these commands. But yes, you could theoretically use AMTM -> BACKUPMON -> rs (restore) once both the "backupmon.sh" and "backupmon.cfg" have been copied over into the /jffs/scripts folder.

2) If not using amtm, would I just paste sh backupmon.sh -restore into something like WinSCP, which I already have on my computer, viz;

I've never used WinSCP in this way, and couldn't guarantee it would work. I'm not sure how it handles keyboard input... or if you could do everything from that "enter command" input field? Again, I would be assuming you would be using an SSH tool like PuTTY to directly interface with these scripts.

 

[ColinTaylor]

If BACKUPMON requires interactive input during the restore procedure don't use WinSCP:

 

[Viktor Jaep]

If BACKUPMON requires interactive input during the restore procedure don't use WinSCP:
View attachment 57360

Lol I didn't even read that far.