On 2024-02-03, Michael <confabul...@kintzios.com> wrote: >> If you'll forgive the analogy, we'll say the the functionality of >> rsync (as used by rsnapshot) is built-in to ZFS. > > Broadly and rather loosely yes, by virtue of the COW and snapshot fs > architecture and the btrfs/zfs send-receive commands. > >> Is there an application that does with ZFS snapshots what the >> rsnapshot application itself does with rsync? > > COW filesystems do not need a 3rd party application.
Really? I can edit a configuration file and then ZFS will provide me with daily/weekly/monthly/yearly snapshots of (say) /home, /etc, and /usr/local on an external hard drive? > They come with their own commands which can be called manually, or > scripted for convenience and automation. Yes, I know that. AFAICT, they provide commands that do pretty much what rsync does in my current backup scheme. It's the automation provided by rsnapshot that I'm asking about. > Various people have created their own scripts and applications, e.g. > > https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/696513/best-strategy-to-backup-btrfs-root-filesystem > >> I googled for ZFS backup applications, but didn't find anything that >> seemed to be widespread and "supported" the way that rsnapshot is. > > There must be quite a few scripts out there, but can't say what support they > may receive. Random search revealed: > > https://www.zfsnap.org/ > > https://github.com/shirkdog/zfsbackup > > https://gbyte.dev/blog/simple-zfs-snapshotting-replicating-backup-rotating-convenience-bash-script Yes, there seem to be a lot of bare-bones homebrewed scripts like those. That is the sort of what I was looking for but they all seem a bit incomplete and unsupported compared rsnapshot. I can install rsnapshot with a simple "emerge rsnapshot", edit the config file, set up the crontab entries, and Bob's your uncle: rsnapshot bugfixes and updates get installed by the usual Gentoo update process, and backups "just happen". -- Grant
