USB Flash Drive Format to store backup Configuration

[smajor]

I've been banging my head against the wall for the past hour on, what I thought based on my Ubuntu experiences, would be a fairly simple thing to do.

I'm trying to get my OPNsense configuration onto an old USB Flash drive of low capacity (hey, not much good for anything else nowadays!) so that when/if I have a melt down or replace hardware, I can insert the USB stick during install and choose "Restore Configuration" and be on my way.

In doing a dry run with this, the OPNsense installer (or rather FreeBSD) refuses to see the format on the flash drive complaining that it isn't formatted or an unknown partition type.

I figured that most distros on the planet would understand at least FAT16 or 32 by now, I guess not. I tried formatting in UFS2, but I either failed horribly or it doesn't like that either.

Could anyone tell me exactly what it might be looking for in terms of formatting and exactly how to do this so it works?

Personally frustrated, but appreciative of any help or suggestion!

Thanks all!

[bartjsmit]

Why not download the configuration from a web browser connected to OPNsense?

System, configuration, backups.

If you forego the RDD data the backup is really small and compresses readily

Bart...

[smajor]

Yes, I understand this, and that is how I get my current configuration.

The goal, as I described, is to have the configuration on-hand and on the USB drive for reloading during install onto a new machine or a reload on the existing machine.

Thanks!

[bartjsmit]

I'm pretty sure you cannot pre-load the OPNsense installation with a previous configuration, so the only route is to do a vanilla install and then restore your XML file.

You can upload your config to a shared drive, or even a cloud storage provider. If the latter, I would certainly use the encryption option.

Bart...

[smajor]

Actually, I'm positive you can. I've done it.

When I had a crash with 16.1 due to a failing hard drive, I had the fresh drive in while the old drive was still connected.  During install I was able to select the old drive where it found my configuration and built it into the new install perfectly.

This is just putting the configuration on a flash drive so if that happens again it can recover the configuration for it.

Thank you for your replies, but I'd prefer we not debate over what can and cannot be done, I'd prefer any help to my actual question: help with formatting the flash drive properly.  If you have any guidance in that direction, please share!

Thanks!