Create snapshots with Timeshift

Tests Passed

Timeshift passed our tests on various systems with rsync and Btrfs with flying colors. No matter whether default, encrypted, or LVM – recovery succeeded at the first attempt every time. In addition, I have been using Timeshift on a system for about two years without any trouble so far.

Having said this, Timeshift could be better documented. The developer's wiki on GitHub [8] is quite terse. It lacks not only an explanation of the filters, but also instructions for Btrfs on creating the required Ubuntu subvolume layout. Not all distributions install Btrfs with the @ and @home subvolumes. For example, openSUSE uses a completely different layout, which is oriented to Snapper and is not suitable for Timeshift. There is also no man page for Timeshift or, at least, no mention of the possibility to use the tool at the command line.

Conclusions and Outlook

It seems that Timeshift is tailored for Linux Mint users. You thus have to glean information about advanced use cases from the Internet. However, this does not detract from the high functionality of Timeshift.

As an extension, integration with the update and boot manager would be desirable, in the way openSUSE does this with Snapper. In addition, the way snapshots are presented could be more meaningful, so that you can view the status of the individual snapshots. Having said this, the integrated comment function does help here. For Btrfs, the grub-btrfs [9] script lets you provide snapshots with the boot manager.

Infos

  1. Timeshift: https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift
  2. CYA: https://github.com/cleverwise/cya
  3. Snapper: http://snapper.io/
  4. Subvolumes: https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Manpage/btrfs-subvolume
  5. Timeshift installer: https://github.com/teejee2008/Timeshift/releases
  6. Hard links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_link
  7. Quotas: https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Quota_support
  8. Wiki: https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift/wiki
  9. grub-btrfs: https://github.com/Antynea/grub-btrfs/blob/master/41_snapshots-btrfs

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