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Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

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Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#91

Post by magicalhippo »

lmz wrote: post #78
magicalhippo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows' Volume Shadow Copy Service[1] allows applications like databases to be informed[2] when a snapshot is about to be taken, so they can ensure their files are in a safe state. They also participate in the restore. While Linux is great at many things, backups is one area I find lacking compared to what I'm used to from Windows. There I take frequent incremental whole-disk backups. The backup program uses the Vol…

LVM snapshots are copy on write and can be used the same way.

Any backup software that utilizes LVM in this way?

Ie automatically creates a snapshot and sends the incremental changes since previous snapshot to a backup destination like a NAS or S3 blob storage.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#92

Post by prmoustache »

nurettin wrote: post #29

Timeshift saved my system so many times over the past 6-7 years. Botched upgrades, experimenting with desktop environments, destroying configuration defaults, it works and does what it says on the tin.

How can you "botch" upgrades so many times?

I may have had only one update that went wrong in 30 years of using Linux and that was just a bug introduced by a gfx driver in a new minor kernel version. I downgraded it and waited for the bug to be fixed upstream and that was it.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#93

Post by khimaros »

gchamonlive wrote: post #43

I use a series of scripts to make daily Borg backups to a local repository: https://github.com/gchamon/borg-automated-backups Currently the local folder is a samba mount so it's off-site. The only tip I'd have for people using Borg is to verify your backups frequently. It can get corrupted without much warning. Also if you want quick and somewhat easy monitoring of backups being created you can use webmin to watch fo…

i've had positive experience with borgmatic which is available in debian repos.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#94

Post by Sakos »

grumbelbart2 wrote: post #87
mdavidn wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That consistency is built on assumptions about the filesystem that may not hold true of a copy made concurrently by a backup tool. e.g. The database might append to write-ahead logs in a different order than the order in which the backup tool reads them.

That's why you do a filesystem snapshot before the backup, something supported by all systems. The snapshot is constant to the backup tool, and read order or subsequent writes don't matter. The main difference is that Windows and MacOS have a mechanism that communicates with applications that a snapshot is about to be taken, allowing the applications (such as databases) to build a more "consistent" version of their f…

> something supported by all systems

Well, supported by Windows and MacOS. Linux only if you happen to use zfs or btrfs, and also only if the backup tool you use happens to rely on those snapshots.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#95

Post by lmz »

magicalhippo wrote: post #91
lmz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LVM snapshots are copy on write and can be used the same way.

Any backup software that utilizes LVM in this way? Ie automatically creates a snapshot and sends the incremental changes since previous snapshot to a backup destination like a NAS or S3 blob storage.

I don't think the diffs are usable that way. They're actually more like an "undo log" in that the snapshot space is taken by "old blocks" when the actual volume is taking writes. It's useful for the same reasons as volume shadow copy: a consistent snapshot of the block device. (Also this can be very bad for write performance as any writes are doubled - to snapshot and to to the real device)

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#96

Post by kkfx »

Nice UI :-)

Random notes/suggestions

- rsync is not a snapthot tool, so while in most of the cases we can rsync a live volume issueless on a desktop it's not a good idea doing so

- zfs support in 2024 is a must, btrfs honestly is the proof of how NOT to manage storage, like stratis

- it seems not much a backup tool, witch is perfectly fine but since the target seems to be end users not too much IT literate it should be stated clear...

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#97

Post by whiztech »

LorenDB wrote: post #33

I prefer using openSUSE, which is tightly integrated with snapper[0], making it simple to recover from a botched update. I've only ever had to use it when an update broke my graphics drivers, but when you need it, it's invaluable. Snapper on openSUSE is integrated with both zypper (package manager) and YaST (system configuration tool) [1], so you get automatic snapshots before and after destructive actions. Also, ope…

I use btrfs-assistant with Kubuntu because I can't get Timeshift to work properly. It's basically some kind of front-end for snapper and btrfsmaintenance.

[0]: https://gitlab.com/btrfs-assistant/btrfs-assistant

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#98

Post by Rinzler89 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #72
LorenDB wrote: post #33

I prefer using openSUSE, which is tightly integrated with snapper[0], making it simple to recover from a botched update. I've only ever had to use it when an update broke my graphics drivers, but when you need it, it's invaluable. Snapper on openSUSE is integrated with both zypper (package manager) and YaST (system configuration tool) [1], so you get automatic snapshots before and after destructive actions. Also, ope…

openSUSE honestly is so criminally underrated. I've been using Tumbleweed for a few years for my dev/work systems and YaST is just great. Also that they ship fully tested images for their rolling release is just so much saner. OBS is another fantastic tool that I see so few people talking about, despite software distribution still being such a sore point in the linux ecosystem.

>openSUSE honestly is so criminally underrated

Because it's not very popular in the US which has mostly cemented around fedora/ubuntu/arch so you don't hear much about any other distros, and most other countries around the world tend to just adopt what they learn from the US, due to the massively influential gravitational field the US has on the tech field.

But in the german speaking world many know about it. It's a shame that despite the internet being relatively borderless it's still quite insular and divided. I'm not a native german speaker but it helps to know it since there's a lot of good linux content out there that's written in german.

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#99

Post by dikei »

pixelmonkey wrote: post #38

I've probably spent way too much time thinking about Linux backup over the years. But thankfully, I found a setup that works really well for me in 2018 or so, used it for the last few years, and I wrote up a detailed blog post about it just a month ago: https://amontalenti.com/2024/06/19/backups-restic-rclone The tools I use on Linux for backup are restic + rclone, storing my restic repo on a speedy USB3 SSD. For off…

I used to use restic with scripting, then I discovered resticprofile, and swiftly replace all my scripts with it.

https://github.com/creativeprojects/resticprofile

I also use Kopia as an alternative to Restic, in case some critical bugs happen to either one of them.

https://kopia.io/

Re: Timeshift: System Restore Tool for Linux

#100

Post by gchamonlive »

khimaros wrote: post #93
gchamonlive wrote: post #43

I use a series of scripts to make daily Borg backups to a local repository: https://github.com/gchamon/borg-automated-backups Currently the local folder is a samba mount so it's off-site. The only tip I'd have for people using Borg is to verify your backups frequently. It can get corrupted without much warning. Also if you want quick and somewhat easy monitoring of backups being created you can use webmin to watch fo…

i've had positive experience with borgmatic which is available in debian repos.

Neat! I'll take a look, thanks!
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