10 System recovery and snapshot management with Snapper #

Although snapshots themselves do not differ in a technical sense, we distinguish between three types of snapshots, based on the events that trigger them:

Certain directories need to be excluded from snapshots for different reasons. The following list shows all directories that are excluded:

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop comes with a reasonable default setup, which should be sufficient for most use cases. However, all aspects of taking automatic snapshots and snapshot keeping can be configured according to your needs.

 1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
 2 <snapper-zypp-plugin-conf>
 3  <solvables>
 4   <solvable match="w"1 important="true"2>kernel-*3</solvable>
 5   <solvable match="w" important="true">dracut</solvable>
 6   <solvable match="w" important="true">glibc</solvable>
 7   <solvable match="w" important="true">systemd*</solvable>
 8   <solvable match="w" important="true">udev</solvable>
 9   <solvable match="w">*</solvable>4
10  </solvables>
11 </snapper-zypp-plugin-conf>

 1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
 2 <snapper-zypp-plugin-conf>
 3  <solvables>
 4   <solvable match="w" important="true">kernel-*</solvable>
 5   <solvable match="w" important="true">dracut</solvable>
 6   <solvable match="w" important="true">glibc</solvable>
 7   <solvable match="w" important="true">systemd*</solvable>
 8   <solvable match="w" important="true">udev</solvable>
 9   <!-- <solvable match="w">*</solvable> -->
10  </solvables>
11 </snapper-zypp-plugin-conf>

10.1.4.3 Creating and mounting new subvolumes #

 

Creating a new subvolume underneath the / hierarchy and permanently mounting it is supported. Such a subvolume is excluded from snapshots. You need to make sure not to create it inside an existing snapshot, since you would not be able to delete snapshots anymore after a rollback.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is configured with the /@/ subvolume which serves as an independent root for permanent subvolumes such as /opt, /srv, /home and others. Any new subvolumes you create and permanently mount need to be created in this initial root file system.

To do so, run the following commands. In this example, a new subvolume /usr/important is created from /dev/sda2.

> sudo mount /dev/sda2 -o subvol=@ /mnt
> sudo btrfs subvolume create /mnt/usr/important
> sudo umount /mnt

The corresponding entry in /etc/fstab needs to look like the following:

/dev/sda2 /usr/important btrfs subvol=@/usr/important 0 0

Tip: Disable copy-on-write (cow)

A subvolume may contain files that constantly change, such as virtualized disk images, database files, or log files. If so, consider disabling the copy-on-write feature for this volume, to avoid duplication of disk blocks. Use the nodatacow mount option in /etc/fstab to do so:

/dev/sda2 /usr/important btrfs nodatacow,subvol=@/usr/important 0 0

To alternatively disable copy-on-write for single files or directories, use the command chattr +C PATH.

> sudo snapper -c lvm create-config --fstype="lvm(xfs)" /thin_lvm

If you set up the root partition with Btrfs during the installation, Snapper—preconfigured for doing rollbacks of YaST or Zypper changes—will automatically be installed. Every time you start a YaST module or a Zypper transaction, two snapshots are created: a “pre-snapshot” capturing the state of the file system before the start of the module and a “post-snapshot” after the module has been finished.

Using the YaST Snapper module or the snapper command line tool, you can undo the changes made by YaST/Zypper by restoring files from the “pre-snapshot”. Comparing two snapshots the tools also allow you to see which files have been changed. You can also display the differences between two versions of a file (diff).

Warning: Reverting user additions

Reverting user additions via undoing changes with Snapper is not recommended. Since certain directories are excluded from snapshots, files belonging to these users will remain in the file system. If a user with the same user ID as a deleted user is created, this user will inherit the files. Therefore it is strongly recommended to use the YaST User and Group Management tool to remove users.

Apart from the installation and administration snapshots, Snapper creates timeline snapshots. You can use these backup snapshots to restore files that have accidentally been deleted or to restore a previous version of a file. By using Snapper's diff feature you can also find out which modifications have been made at a certain point of time.

Being able to restore files is especially interesting for data, which may reside on subvolumes or partitions for which snapshots are not taken by default. To be able to restore files from home directories, for example, create a separate Snapper configuration for /home doing automatic timeline snapshots. See Section 10.5, “Creating and modifying Snapper configurations” for instructions.

Warning: Restoring files compared to rollback

Snapshots taken from the root file system (defined by Snapper's root configuration), can be used to do a system rollback. The recommended way to do such a rollback is to boot from the snapshot and then perform the rollback. See Section 10.3, “System rollback by booting from snapshots” for details.

Performing a rollback would also be possible by restoring all files from a root file system snapshot as described below. However, this is not recommended. You may restore single files, for example, a configuration file from the /etc directory, but not the complete list of files from the snapshot.

This restriction only affects snapshots taken from the root file system.

Before a rollback is performed, a snapshot of the running file system is created. The description references the ID of the snapshot that was restored in the rollback.

Snapshots created by rollbacks receive the value number for the Cleanup attribute. The rollback snapshots are therefore automatically deleted when the set number of snapshots is reached. Refer to Section 10.7, “Automatic snapshot clean-up” for details. If the snapshot contains important data, extract the data from the snapshot before it is removed.

# snapper --iso list
Type   | # |     | Cleanup | Description           | Userdata
-------+---+ ... +---------+-----------------------+--------------
single | 0 |     |         | current               |
single | 1 |     |         | first root filesystem |
single | 2 |     | number  | after installation    | important=yes

# snapper --iso list
Type   | # |     | Cleanup | Description           | Userdata
-------+---+ ... +---------+-----------------------+--------------
single | 0 |     |         | current               |
single | 1 |     | number  | first root filesystem |
single | 2 |     | number  | after installation    | important=yes
single | 3 |     | number  | rollback backup of #1 | important=yes
single | 4 |     |         |                       |

To boot from a snapshot, reboot your machine and choose Start Bootloader from a read-only snapshot. A screen listing all bootable snapshots opens. The most recent snapshot is listed first, the oldest last. Use the keys ↓ and ↑ to navigate and press Enter to activate the selected snapshot. Activating a snapshot from the boot menu does not reboot the machine immediately, but rather opens the boot loader of the selected snapshot.

Figure 10.1: Boot loader: snapshots #

 

Warning: Booting Xen from a Btrfs snapshot using UEFI currently fails

Refer to https://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc/?id=000020602 for more details.

Each snapshot entry in the boot loader follows a naming scheme which makes it possible to identify it easily:

[*]1OS2 (KERNEL3,DATE4TTIME5,DESCRIPTION6)

Tip: Setting a custom description for boot loader snapshot entries

It is possible to replace the default string in the description field of a snapshot with a custom string. This is for example useful if an automatically created description is not sufficient, or a user-provided description is too long. To set a custom string STRING for snapshot NUMBER, use the following command:

> sudo snapper modify --userdata "bootloader=STRING" NUMBER

The description should be no longer than 25 characters—everything that exceeds this size will not be readable on the boot screen.

A complete system rollback, restoring the complete system to the identical state as it was in when a snapshot was taken, is not possible.

The easiest way is to start with a new /home directory formatted with Btrfs, and no existing users. Install pam_snapper:

# zypper in pam_snapper

Add this line to /etc/pam.d/common-session:

session optional pam_snapper.so

Use the /usr/lib/pam_snapper/pam_snapper_useradd.sh script to create a new user and home directory. By default the script performs a dry run. Edit the script to change DRYRUN=1 to DRYRUN=0. Now you can create a new user:

# /usr/lib/pam_snapper/pam_snapper_useradd.sh \
username group passwd=password
Create subvolume '/home/username'
useradd: warning: the home directory already exists.
Not copying any file from skel directory into it.

The files from /etc/skel will be copied into the user's home directory at their first login. Verify that the user's configuration was created by listing your Snapper configurations:

# snapper list --all
Config: home_username, subvolume: /home/username
Type   | # | Pre # | Date | User | Cleanup | Description | Userdata
-------+---+-------+------+------+---------+-------------+---------
single | 0 |       |      | root |         | current     |

Over time, this output will become populated with a list of snapshots, which the user can manage with the standard Snapper commands.

Remove users with the /usr/lib/pam_snapper/pam_snapper_userdel.sh script. By default it performs a dry run, so edit it to change DRYRUN=1 to DRYRUN=0. This removes the user, the user's home subvolume, Snapper configuration, and deletes all snapshots.

# /usr/lib/pam_snapper/pam_snapper_userdel.sh username

These are the steps for manually setting up users' home directories with Snapper. /home must be formatted with Btrfs, and the users not yet created.

# btrfs subvol create /home/username
# snapper -c home_username create-config /home/username
# sed -i -e "s/ALLOW_USERS=\"\"/ALLOW_USERS=\"username\"/g" \
/etc/snapper/configs/home_username
# yast users add username=username home=/home/username password=password
# chown username.group /home/username
# chmod 755 /home/username/.snapshots

The snapper command offers several subcommands for managing existing configurations. You can list, show, delete and modify them:

Each snapshot consists of the snapshot itself and certain metadata. When creating a snapshot you also need to specify the metadata. Modifying a snapshot means changing its metadata—you cannot modify its content. Use snapper list to show existing snapshots and their metadata:

The following metadata is available for each snapshot:

To create a snapshot, run snapper create or click Create in the YaST module Snapper. The following examples explain how to create snapshots from the command line. The YaST interface for Snapper is not explicitly described here but provides equivalent functionality.

Tip: Snapshot description

Always specify a meaningful description to later be able to identify its purpose. You can also specify additional information via the option --userdata.

Snapper allows you to modify the description, the cleanup algorithm, and the user data of a snapshot. All other metadata cannot be changed. The following examples explain how to modify snapshots from the command line. It should be easy to adopt them when using the YaST interface.

To modify a snapshot on the command line, you need to know its number. Use snapper list to display all snapshots and their numbers.

The YaST Snapper module already lists all snapshots. Choose one from the list and click Modify.

To delete a snapshot with the YaST Snapper module, choose a snapshot from the list and click Delete.

To delete a snapshot with the command-line tool, you need to know its number. Get it by running snapper list. To delete a snapshot, run snapper delete NUMBER.

Deleting the current default subvolume snapshot is not allowed.

When deleting snapshots with Snapper, the freed space will be claimed by a Btrfs process running in the background. Thus the visibility and the availability of free space is delayed. In case you need space freed by deleting a snapshot to be available immediately, use the option --sync with the delete command.

Tip: Deleting snapshot pairs

When deleting a pre snapshot, you should always delete its corresponding post snapshot (and vice versa).

Tip: Delete unreferenced snapshots

Sometimes the Btrfs snapshot is present but the XML file containing the metadata for Snapper is missing. In this case, the snapshot is not visible for Snapper and needs to be deleted manually:

btrfs subvolume delete /.snapshots/SNAPSHOTNUMBER/snapshot
rm -rf /.snapshots/SNAPSHOTNUMBER

Tip: Old snapshots occupy more disk space

If you delete snapshots to free space on your hard disk, make sure to delete old snapshots first. The older a snapshot is, the more disk space it occupies.

Snapshots are also automatically deleted by a daily cron job. Refer to Section 10.6.1.2, “Cleanup algorithms” for details.

Cleaning up numbered snapshots—administration plus installation snapshot pairs—is controlled by the following parameters of a Snapper configuration.

Note: Limit and age

NUMBER_LIMIT, NUMBER_LIMIT_IMPORTANT and NUMBER_MIN_AGE are always evaluated. Snapshots are only deleted when all conditions are met.

If you always want to keep the number of snapshots defined with NUMBER_LIMIT* regardless of their age, set NUMBER_MIN_AGE to 0.

The following example shows a configuration to keep the last 10 important and regular snapshots regardless of age:

NUMBER_CLEANUP=yes
NUMBER_LIMIT_IMPORTANT=10
NUMBER_LIMIT=10
NUMBER_MIN_AGE=0

If you do not want to keep snapshots beyond a certain age, set NUMBER_LIMIT* to 0 and provide the age with NUMBER_MIN_AGE.

The following example shows a configuration to only keep snapshots younger than ten days:

NUMBER_CLEANUP=yes
NUMBER_LIMIT_IMPORTANT=0
NUMBER_LIMIT=0
NUMBER_MIN_AGE=864000

Cleaning up timeline snapshots is controlled by the following parameters of a Snapper configuration.

TIMELINE_CLEANUP="yes"
TIMELINE_CREATE="yes"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_DAILY="7"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_HOURLY="24"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_MONTHLY="12"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_WEEKLY="4"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_YEARLY="2"
TIMELINE_MIN_AGE="1800"

As explained in Section 10.1.2, “Types of snapshots”, whenever you run a YaST module or execute Zypper, a pre snapshot is created on start-up and a post snapshot is created when exiting. In case you have not made any changes there will be no difference between the pre and post snapshots. Such “empty” snapshot pairs can be automatically be deleted by setting the following parameters in a Snapper configuration:

Snapper does not offer custom clean-up algorithms for manually created snapshots. However, you can assign the number or timeline clean-up algorithm to a manually created snapshot. If you do so, the snapshot will join the “clean-up queue” for the algorithm you specified. You can specify a clean-up algorithm when creating a snapshot, or by modifying an existing snapshot:

In addition to the number and/or timeline clean-up algorithms described above, Snapper supports quotas. You can define what percentage of the available space snapshots are allowed to occupy. This percentage value always applies to the Btrfs subvolume defined in the respective Snapper configuration.

Btrfs quotas are applied to subvolumes, not to users. You may apply disk space quotas to users and groups (for example, with the quota command) in addition to using Btrfs quotas.

If Snapper was enabled during the installation, quota support is automatically enabled. In case you manually enable Snapper at a later point in time, you can enable quota support by running snapper setup-quota. This requires a valid configuration (see Section 10.5, “Creating and modifying Snapper configurations” for more information).

Quota support is controlled by the following parameters of a Snapper configuration.

The following limitations and guidelines apply: