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bumbling fool
Asked: 2011-03-17 09:59:26 +0800 CST

btrfs snapshot management

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1) Is there a gui or curses tool that allows you to view/manage btrfs subvols/snapshots?

2) Is there a utility or already made script that would automatically create and delete snapshots daily/weekly? I'm aware that I could probably use a simple sh via cron but is there anything more elaborate that already exists?

backup

5 Answers

  1. 1) I have not seen any GUI or curses tool.

    2) There are a couple of existing scripts out there. I haven't tried them, but they look interesting:

    SnapBtr: https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/SnapBtr

    btrfs-snap: http://blog.patshead.com/2010/11/tweak-btrfs-snap-for-more-frequent-snapshots.html

    A related btrfs development is the announcement that Natty (11.04) will feature automatic btrfs rollback for packages. I.e., for btrfs installations it will automatically snapshot before any apt install/upgrade/remove operation: http://mvogt.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/apt-btrfs-snapshot/

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  2. I found timeshift to work far better than snapper-GUI, except while in SUSE, where snapper rocks! https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift

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  3. snapper is a command-line tool designed to manage btrfs snapshots, and can be used with snapper-gui.

    snapper is available for ubuntu. It can be configured to take time-based snapshots, reboot snapshots and even take snapshots every time apt is called. In 18.04, snapshot triggered by boot or apt are enable by default (after configuring snapshots for /.

    If you plan to use snapper (or any other snapshot tool), I would recommend you to make a separate volume (or partition) for:

    • /tmp : snapshots will be a pure waste of space.
    • /var/log : so you can preserve your logs even after a restoration.

    This tool : grub-btrfs, can be used to generate bootable grub entries for your snapshots.

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  4. There's a generic GUI tool called btrfs-gui but it's in early stages of development as of this writing and can only list, but not create/modify snapshots.

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  5. Some tools are listed in the question "btrfs-enabled backup solution".

    The btrfs wiki page "Use Cases" lists some tools: SnapBtr, Snapper, btrfs-time-machine, UrBackup.

    There's a proposal for a built-in tool called autosnap, which "could configure btrfs to take regular or event based snapshots and further manage the snapshots automatically". However, as October 2013, it is not available yet.

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