Snapper

= Introduction =

Snapper is a snapshot utility initially developed by Suse.

= Rollback =

Snapper has function called 'rollback' to switch your current mounted btrfs subvolume to an older subvolume. This feature requires a btrfs file system.

To work properly the rollback feature needs an entry in the fstab to mount the subvolume ".snapshots" to the directory "/.snapshots". Assuming that /dev/sda1 contains your btrfs filesystem you are working on, you need to add:

When snapper is initialized, this fstab entry is not needed, because the subvolume "/.snapshots" is created at the root subvolume and from there accessible. But as soon as you do your first rollback to a snapshot subvolume (e.g. /.snapshots/432), and you afterwards reboot into your snapshot subvolume you will leave the root subvolum. In the snapshot subvolume the /.snapshots directory is empty (e.g. /.snapshots/432/.snapshots) So snapper will have problems to create further subvolums. In my case it printed an input outpur error to the console.