[jclima]

Problem

The Control Panel upgrade ran vesselstackctl backup --require-mounted with no terminal attached. An unmounted backup drive always failed the upgrade ("backup location not mounted"), with no way to mount it, pick another location or skip from the panel.

Change

Before Back up & install or Update from folder, the panel checks the backup drive (GET /api/backup-preflight). If the drive is mounted, nothing changes. If it isn't, a dialog offers, for that one run only:

• mount the /etc/fstab entry
• mount a USB drive the panel found (chosen by UUID)
• back up to the system disk once, to /var/backups/vesselstack
• change the backup folder
• install without a backup (checkbox plus danger button)

Script changes:

• vesselstackctl backup --system-disk-once
• vesselstackctl backup-drive list --json
• vesselstackctl backup-drive mount --fstab|--uuid:
  • mounts with nodev,nosuid,noexec
  • verifies the UUID after mounting and unmounts on failure
  • never writes /etc/fstab
• vesselstackctl update --backup-choice=system-disk-once|skip, used by the panel and the installer and left out of --help
• Terminal menu choice [4] now writes to /var/backups/vesselstack, so the unmounted drive folder stays empty.

Safety:

• The choice is validated in the panel and again in the worker.
• It is never written to vesselstack.env or reused.
• VESSELSTACK_BACKUP_ALLOW_UNMOUNTED=false, in the env file or the process environment, blocks system-disk-once and skip.
• The worker checks the lock again after the dry-run.
• No device path or folder from the browser reaches root.
• A non-update action that includes a backup choice gets a 400.
• With the drive mounted, the default path runs the same commands as before.

README, docs/CONTROL_PANEL.md, docs/UPDATING.md, docs/CONTROL_PANEL_TESTING.md and CHANGELOG (Unreleased) are updated.

Known limitation

The upgrade that delivers this still runs the installed (old) worker. For that one upgrade, mount the drive by hand or update from a terminal.

Testing

• python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -p 'test_*.py': 1162 OK, 17 skipped (macOS)
• node tests/test_control_panel_ui.cjs
• python3 scripts/check-public-tree.py, tests/test-distribution.sh, bash -n / shellcheck -x
• sudo tests/test-lifecycle.sh and sudo tests/test-get-vesselstack.sh (Linux only; new cases written without being run)
• On a Pi: a drive mounted from the panel is visible to the host (findmnt); see docs/CONTROL_PANEL_TESTING.md

🤖 Generated with Claude Code