Btrfs 详解：快照
Btrfs
![](/data/attachment/album/202310/16/092244yog42vb0l3v5h33h.jpg)


这篇文章会探讨什么是 Btrfs 快照，它们如何工作的，你在日常生活中进行快照的好处。这篇文章是《Btrfs 详解》系列文章中的一篇。从 Fedora Linux 33 开始，Btrfs 就是 Fedora Workstation 和 Fedora Silverblue 的默认文件系统。


如果你错过了，这里是本系列的上一篇文章：[Btrfs 详解：子卷](/article-16250-1.html)


### 简介


想象一下，你长时间处理一个文件，反复添加和撤销修改。然后，在某个时刻你意识到：两小时前你撤销的部分修改，现在会非常有用。而昨天在你销毁那个设计之前，你也已经修改了这个特殊的部分。当然，由于你会定期保存文件，所以旧的改动会丢失。很多人可能都遇到过这样的情况。如果能恢复旧版本的文件，而无需定期手动复制，岂不美哉？


这是一个 Btrfs 快照可以帮助你的特别场景。当你使用正确的话，快照同时也为你的电脑提供了很好的备份方案。


下面你会找到一些关于快照的例子。如果你想跟着操作，你必须拥有访问某些 Btrfs 文件系统的权限和 root 权限。你可以通过下面命令来验证一个目录的文件系统。



```
$ findmnt -no FSTYPE /home
btrfs

```

这个命令会输出你 `/home/` 目录的文件系统名称。如果它是 `btrfs`，那就可以了。让我们创建一个新的目录去做实验：



```
$ mkdir ~/btrfs-snapshot-test
$ cd ~/btrfs-snapshot-test

```

在下面的文本中，你会看到很多像上面显示的那样的命令输出框。请在阅读/比较命令输出时请记住，**框中的内容在行末会被换行**。这使得识别跨多行的长行变得困难，降低了可读性。如果有疑问，试着调整浏览器窗口的大小，看看文本的变化！


### Btrfs 快照


让我们从一个基本的问题开始：什么是 Btrfs 快照？如果你在文档 <sup class="footnote-ref"> <a href="#fn1" id="fnref1">  [1] </a></sup> 和维基 <sup class="footnote-ref"> <a href="#fn2" id="fnref2">  [2] </a></sup> 中查找，你不会立刻找到这个问题的答案。事实上，从“功能”一节里是找不到的。如果你搜索一下，你会发现快照和 Btrfs 子卷一起被大量地提及 <sup class="footnote-ref"> <a href="#fn3" id="fnref3">  [3] </a></sup>。所以现在做什么呢？


还记得快照在系列前面的文章里两次被提到吗？是这样说的：



> 
> CoW 的优势在哪里？简单的说：文件被修改和编辑的历史被保存了下来。Btrfs 保存文件旧版本的引用（inode）可以轻易地被访问。这个引用就是快照：文件系统在某个时间点的状态镜像。这将是这系列文章里的单独的一篇，所以暂时留到后面介绍。
> 
> 
> —— [Btrfs 详解：基础概念](/article-16189-1.html)
> 
> 
> 


以及：



> 
> 另外一个分离 `/` 和 `/home` 的优势是我们可以分别进行 *快照* 。子卷是快照的边界，对一个子卷的快照永远不会包含该子卷下面的其他子卷的内容。快照的更多细节会在后续的文章中介绍。
> 
> 
> —— [Btrfs 详解：子卷](/article-16250-1.html)
> 
> 
> 


看起来快照是和 Btrfs 子卷相关的。你可能之前在其他地方听到过快照，比如说 LVM（逻辑卷管理器）。虽然技术角度上它们都是为了同一个目的，但它们在实现方面有所不同。


每个 Btrfs 快照是一个子卷。但是，不是每个子卷都是一份快照。区别在于子卷里面包含的内容。一个快照是子卷加上一些内容：它包含对现在和过去版本的文件的引用（inode）。让我们看看快照是从哪来的！


### 创建 Btrfs 快照


想使用快照功能，你需要一个 Btrfs 子卷来进行快照。让我们在测试目录（`~/btrfs-snapshot-test`）里创建一个：



```
$ cd ~/btrfs-snapshot-test
$ sudo btrfs subvolume create demo
Create subvolume './demo'
$ sudo chown -R $(id -u):$(id -g) demo/
$ cd demo

```

因为 Btrfs 子卷默认是被 root 所有的，你必须用 `chown` 去修改子卷里的文件的所有权到普通用户上。现在我们在里面新加一些文件：



```
$ touch foo bar baz
$ echo "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, " > foo

```

你的目录现在看起来像这样：



```
$ ls -l
total 4
-rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan  0 Dec 20 08:11 bar
-rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan  0 Dec 20 08:11 baz
-rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 29 Dec 20 08:11 foo

```

让我们从这里创建第一次快照：



```
$ cd ..
$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot demo demo-1
Create a snapshot of 'demo' in './demo-1'

```

这就好了。让我们看看发生了什么：



```
$ ls -l
total 0
drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan 18 Dec 20 08:11 demo
drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan 18 Dec 20 08:11 demo-1
$ tree
.
├── demo
│   ├── bar
│   ├── baz
│   └── foo
└── demo-1
    ├── bar
    ├── baz
    └── foo

2 directories, 6 files

```

这看起来是一份拷贝！为了验证，我们从快照里读取 `foo` 的内容：



```
$ cat demo/foo
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
$ cat demo-1/foo
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,

```

当我们修改原始文件时，真正的效果变得明显：



```
$ echo "consectetur adipiscing elit, " >> demo/foo
$ cat demo/foo
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit,
$ cat demo-1/foo
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,

```

这表明快照仍然持有“旧”版本的数据：`foo` 的内容没有改变。到目前为止，你可以通过一个简单的文件复制来实现完全相同的目标。现在你也可以继续处理旧文件了。



```
$ echo "sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt" >> demo-1/foo
$ cat demo-1/foo
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt

```

但是在底层，我们的快照实际上是一个新的 Btrfs 子卷。你可以通过下面的命令来验证这一点：



```
$ sudo btrfs subvolume list -o .
ID 259 gen 265 top level 256 path home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo
ID 260 gen 264 top level 256 path home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo-1

```

### Btrfs 子卷 vs. 文件复制


这一切有什么意义呢？到目前为止快照看起来是一个更加复杂的复制文件的方式。事实上，快照不仅仅是表面上看起来那么简单。让我们来创建一个更大的文件：



```
$ dd if=/dev/urandom of=demo/bigfile bs=1M count=512
512+0 records in
512+0 records out
536870912 bytes (537 MB, 512 MiB) copied, 1.3454 s, 399 MB/s

```

现在有一个512 MB 大小的新文件 `demo/bigfile` 。让我们创建另一个快照，这样在你修改数据的时候就不会丢失：



```
$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot demo demo-2
Create a snapshot of 'demo' in './demo-2'

```

现在我们通过追加少量字符串到文件来模拟变化：



```
$ echo "small changes" >> demo/bigfile

```

这是生效后的文件结构：



```
$ tree
.
├── demo
│   ├── bar
│   ├── baz
│   ├── bigfile
│   └── foo
├── demo-1
│   ├── bar
│   ├── baz
│   └── foo
└── demo-2
    ├── bar
    ├── baz
    ├── bigfile
    └── foo

3 directories, 11 files

```

但是真正的神奇的发生在其他地方。你已经复制了 `demo/bigfile` ，你现在拥有了两个大约 512 MiB 的文件。但是，因为它们是不同的拷贝，它们应该会占据共 1 GiB 的空间。记住两个文件的差异不超过 10 字节 —— 和原文件大小相比这几乎没什么差别。


Btrfs 快照工作原理与文件复制不同：而是它们保持对当前和过去的 inode 的引用。当你在文件追加更新时，在底层 Btrfs 分配更多的空间去存储更新，同时在原来的 inode 增加对新数据的引用。之前的内容保持不变。为了便于理解，你可以认为这是仅仅“存储”原文件和修改版本的差异。


让我们看看这个效果：



```
$ sudo compsize .
Processed 11 files, 5 regular extents (9 refs), 3 inline.
Type       Perc     Disk Usage   Uncompressed Referenced
TOTAL      100%      512M         512M         1.0G
none       100%      512M         512M         1.0G

```

这个有趣的数字出现在 `TOTAL` 一行：


* `Referenced` 是当前目录下所有文件大小的总和
* `Disk Usage` 是用于在磁盘上存储文件分配空间的大小


你有一共 1 GiB 的文件，但存储它们仅仅占据了 512 MiB。


### Btrfs 快照和备份


目前为止，在这篇文章中，你已经看到如何创建 Btrfs 快照和它们的特别之处。有人可能会想：如果我在我的 PC 本地进行一系列的快照，我就有一个可靠的备份策略。 **其实不是这样的** 。如果 Btrfs 子卷共享的底层数据被偶然破坏了（被 Btrfs 之外的东西影响，比如宇宙射线），所有指向这些数据的子卷都会存在相同的错误。


为了让快照成为真正的备份，你应该将它们存储到一个不同的 Btrfs 系统上，例如在一个外部驱动器上。为了本文的目的，让我们在一个文件里创建一个新的 Btrfs 系统，并挂载它来模拟一个外部驱动。如果你有一个格式为 Btrfs 的外部驱动器，请随意替换以下命令中提到的所有路径来试试！让我们创建一个新的 Btrfs 文件系统：


**注意**：下面的命令会在你的文件系统上创建一个 8 GB 大小的新文件。如果你想跟着下面的步骤，请确保你的磁盘空间至少有 8 GB 剩余。请不要分配小于 8 GB 到这个文件，否则 Btrfs 可能在挂载时会遇到问题。



```
$ truncate -s 8G btrfs_filesystem.img
$ sudo mkfs.btrfs -L "backup-drive" btrfs_filesystem.img
btrfs-progs v5.18
See http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org for more information.

[ ... ]

Devices:
    ID        SIZE  PATH
    1     8.00GiB  btrfs_filesystem.img

```

这些命令创建了名为 `btrfs_filesystem.img` 的 8 GB 新文件，同时在上面格式化了一个 Btrfs 文件系统。现在你可以像外部驱动器一样挂载它：



```
$ mkdir backup-drive
$ sudo mount btrfs_filesystem.img backup-drive
$ sudo chown -R $(id -u):$(id -g) backup-drive
$ ls -lh
total 4.7M
drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan    0 Dec 20 08:35 backup-drive
-rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 8.0G Dec 20 08:37 btrfs_filesystem.img
drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan   32 Dec 20 08:14 demo
drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan   18 Dec 20 08:11 demo-1
drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan   32 Dec 20 08:14 demo-2

```

妙，现在挂载在 `backup-drive` 下面有一个独立的 Btrfs 文件系统！让我们尝试进行快照并且把快照放进去：



```
$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot demo backup-drive/demo-3
Create a snapshot of 'demo' in 'backup-drive/demo-3'
ERROR: cannot snapshot 'demo': Invalid cross-device link

```

发生了什么？噢，你尝试对 `demo` 进行一次快照并把它存在不同的 Btrfs 文件系统里（从 Btrfs 视角来看是一个不同的设备）。还记得一个 Btrfs 子卷仅持有对文件和内容的引用（inode）？这正是问题所在：文件和内容存在于我们的 `home` 文件系统，但不在新创建的 `backup-drive` 。你得找到一种方式去传输子卷和其内容到新的文件系统里。


#### 在不同的 Btrfs 文件系统存储快照


针对这个目的 Btrfs 工具有两个特殊的命令。让我们首先来看看它们是如何工作的：



```
$ sudo btrfs send demo | sudo btrfs receive backup-drive/
ERROR: subvolume /home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo is not read-only
ERROR: empty stream is not considered valid

```

另一个错误！这时它告诉你我们想要传输的子卷不是只读的。这是对的：你可以写入新内容到所有目前为止创建的快照/子卷。你可以像这样创建一个只读的快照：



```
$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot -r demo demo-3-ro
Create a readonly snapshot of 'demo' in './demo-3-ro'

```

不像之前那样，这里 `-r` 选项被加到了 `snapshot` 子命令里。这创建一个只读的快照，这很容易去验证：



```
$ touch demo-3-ro/another-file
touch: cannot touch 'demo-3-ro/another-file': Read-only file system

```

现在你可以重新尝试传输子卷：



```
$ sudo btrfs send demo-3-ro | sudo btrfs receive backup-drive/
At subvol demo-3-ro
At subvol demo-3-ro
$ tree

├── backup-drive
│   └── demo-3-ro
│       ├── bar
│       ├── baz
│       ├── bigfile
│       └── foo
├── btrfs_filesystem.img
├── demo
[ ... ]
└── demo-3-ro
    ├── bar
    ├── baz
    ├── bigfile
    └── foo

6 directories, 20 files

```

成功了！你成功传输原来子卷 `demo` 的一个只读快照到一个外部的 Btrfs 文件系统。


#### 在非 Btrfs 文件系统存储快照


上面你已经看到你如何能存储 Btrfs 子卷/快照到其他的 Btrfs 文件系统。但如果你没有其他的 Btrfs 文件系统并且不能新创建一个，比如说外部驱动器需要一个和 Windows 或 MacOS 兼容的文件系统，你可以做什么呢？在这种情况下你可以存储子卷在文件里：



```
$ sudo btrfs send -f demo-3-ro-subvolume.btrfs demo-3-ro
At subvol demo-3-ro
$ ls -lh demo-3-ro-subvolume.btrfs
-rw-------. 1 root root 513M Dec 21 10:39 demo-3-ro-subvolume.btrfs

```

文件 `demo-3-ro-subvolume.btrfs` 现在包含了随后重建 `demo-3-ro` 子卷需要的所有东西。


#### 增量地发送快照


如果你对不同的子卷重复执行这个操作，你会发现在某些时间点不同的子卷不再共享它们的文件内容。这是因为像上面一样发送一个子卷，去重建这个单独的子卷的所有数据将被传送到目标位置。但是，你可以引导 Btrfs 只向目标位置发送不同子卷的差异！所谓的增量发送将保证共享的引用在子卷中仍然共享。为了展示这一点，新增一些变动到我们原来的子卷：



```
$ echo "a few more changes" >> demo/bigfile

```

然后创建另一个只读子卷：



```
$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot -r demo demo-4-ro
Create a readonly snapshot of 'demo' in './demo-4-ro'

```

然后现在发送它：



```
$ sudo btrfs send -p demo-3-ro demo-4-ro | sudo btrfs receive backup-drive
At subvol demo-4-ro
At snapshot demo-4-ro

```

在上面的命令，`-p` 选项指定了一个父子卷用来计算差异。重要的是记住原 Btrfs 文件系统和目标 Btrfs 文件系统都必须包含相同的、未被修改过的父子卷！确保新的子卷真的在那里：



```
$ ls backup-drive/
demo-3-ro  demo-4-ro
$ ls -lR backup-drive/demo-4-ro/
backup-drive/demo-4-ro/:
total 524296
-rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan         0 Dec 20 08:11 bar
-rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan         0 Dec 20 08:11 baz
-rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 536870945 Dec 21 10:49 bigfile
-rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan        59 Dec 20 08:13 foo

```

但你怎样知道增量发送只传输了子卷间的差异呢？让我们传输数据流到一个文件里然后看看它有多大：



```
$ sudo btrfs send -f demo-4-ro-diff.btrfs -p demo-3-ro demo-4-ro
At subvol demo-4-ro
$ ls -l demo-4-ro-diff.btrfs
-rw-------. 1 root root 315 Dec 21 10:55 demo-4-ro-diff.btrfs

```

根据 `ls` ，这个文件仅仅只有 315 字节大小！这意味着增量传输只传输子卷间的差异，和额外的 Btrfs 相关的元数据。


#### 从快照中恢复子卷


在继续之前，让我们清理掉这时候不再需要的东西：



```
$ sudo rm -rf demo-4-ro-diff.btrfs demo-3-ro-subvolume.btrfs
$ sudo btrfs subvolume delete demo-1 demo-2 demo-3-ro demo-4-ro
$ ls -l
total 531516
drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan         36 Dec 21 10:50 backup-drive
-rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 8589934592 Dec 21 10:51 btrfs_filesystem.img
drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan         32 Dec 20 08:14 demo

```

到目前为止你已经成功创建了可读/写和只读的 Btrfs 子卷快照，并把它们发送到外部。但是，为了把这作为备份策略，还要有一种方式去发送子卷回原来的文件系统和让它们再次变为可写。出于这个目的，我们移动 `demo` 子卷到其他地方并且尝试从最近的快照中重建它。第一步：重命名为 `broken` 子卷。一旦恢复成功它会被删除：



```
$ mv demo demo-broken

```

第二步: 传回最近的快照到这个文件系统：



```
$ sudo btrfs send backup-drive/demo-4-ro | sudo btrfs receive .
At subvol backup-drive/demo-4-ro
At subvol demo-4-ro
[hartan@fedora btrfs-snapshot-test]$ ls
backup-drive  btrfs_filesystem.img  demo-4-ro  demo-broken

```

第三步: 从快照创建一个可读写的子卷：



```
$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot demo-4-ro demo
Create a snapshot of 'demo-4-ro' in './demo'
$ ls
backup-drive  btrfs_filesystem.img  demo  demo-4-ro  demo-broken

```

上一步非常重要：你不能重命名 `demo-4-ro` 为 `demo` ，因为这仍然是一个只读子卷！最后你可以检查你所有你想要的东西是不是在那里：



```
$ tree demo
demo
├── bar
├── baz
├── bigfile
└── foo

0 directories, 4 files
$ tail -c -19 demo/bigfile
a few more changes

```

最后的命令告诉你 `bigfile` 的最后 19 个字符实际上是上次变更执行的结果。这个时候，你可能想从 `demo-broken` 复制最近的更新到新的 `demo` 子卷。因为你没有执行任何更新，你可以过时的子卷：



```
$ sudo btrfs subvolume delete demo-4-ro demo-broken
Delete subvolume (no-commit): '/home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo-4-ro'
Delete subvolume (no-commit): '/home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo-broken'

```

就是这样！你成功从一个之前存在不同 Btrfs 文件系统（外部介质）的快照中恢复 `demo` 子卷。


### 子卷作为快照的边界


在本系列的第二篇文章中我提到子卷作为快照的边界，但这到底是什么意思呢？简单来说，子卷的一份快照仅包含这个子卷的内容，而不是下面嵌套的子卷。让我们来看看这个：



```
$ sudo btrfs subvolume create demo/nested
Create subvolume 'demo/nested'
$ sudo chown -R $(id -u):$(id -g) demo/nested
$ touch demo/nested/another_file

```

让我们像以前一样进行一次快照：



```
$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot demo demo-nested
Create a snapshot of 'demo' in './demo-nested'

```

然后查看里面的内容：



```
$ tree demo-nested
demo-nested
├── bar
├── baz
├── bigfile
├── foo
└── nested

1 directory, 4 files

$ tree demo
demo
├── bar
├── baz
├── bigfile
├── foo
└── nested
    └── another_file

1 directory, 5 files

```

注意到 `another_file` 不见了，仅仅是目录 `nested` 还在。这是因为 `nested` 是一个子卷：`demo` 的快照包含嵌套子卷的目录（挂载点），但里面的内容是缺失的。目前没有方法递归地执行快照去包含嵌套子卷。但是，我们可以利用这个优势去从快照中排除一些目录！这通常对那些你容易再现的数据有用，或者它们很少变化。例子有虚拟机或者容器镜像，电影，游戏文件等等。


在总结之前，我们移除所有测试过程中创建的东西：



```
$ sudo btrfs subvolume delete demo/nested demo demo-nested
Delete subvolume (no-commit): '/home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo/nested'
Delete subvolume (no-commit): '/home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo'
Delete subvolume (no-commit): '/home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo-nested'
$ sudo umount backup-drive
$ cd ..
$ rm -rf btrfs-snapshot-test/

```

### 基于 Btrfs 备份最后思考


如果你决定使用 Btrfs 来执行数据的定期备份，那么你可能需要使用一个工具来自动完成这项任务。Btrfs 维基有一个专门针对 Btrfs <sup class="footnote-ref"> <a href="#fn4" id="fnref4">  [4] </a></sup> 的备份工具列表。在那里，你还将看到另一个手动执行 Btrfs 备份步骤的摘要。就我个人而言，我对 `btrbk` <sup class="footnote-ref"> <a href="#fn5" id="fnref5">  [5] </a></sup> 有很多很好的体验，我正在使用它来执行我自己的备份。除了备份之外，`btrbk` 还可以在你的 PC 本地保存 Btrfs 快照列表。我使用它来防止意外的数据删除。


如果你想要了解更多有关使用 Btrfs 进行备份的内容，欢迎在下面评论，我会考虑写一篇专门讨论这个话题的后续文章。


### 总结


本文研究了 Btrfs 快照，它们本质上是 Btrfs 子卷。你了解了如何创建可读写和只读快照，以及这种机制如何有助于防止数据丢失。


本系列的后续文章将讨论:


* 压缩 - 透明地节省存储空间
* 配额组 - 限制文件系统大小
* RAID - 替代 mdadm 配置


如果你还想了解与 Btrfs 相关的其他主题，请查看 Btrfs 维基 <sup class="footnote-ref"> <a href="#fn2" id="fnref2:1">  [2:1] </a></sup> 和文档 <sup class="footnote-ref"> <a href="#fn1" id="fnref1:1">  [1:1] </a></sup>。不要忘记查看本系列的前两篇文章！如果你认为本文缺少了一些内容，请在下面的评论中告诉我们。再会！


### 参考资料



1. <https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Introduction.html> [↩︎](#fnref1) [↩︎](#fnref1:1)
2. <https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page> [↩︎](#fnref2) [↩︎](#fnref2:1)
3. <https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Subvolumes.html> [↩︎](#fnref3)
4. <https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Incremental_Backup#Available_Backup_Tools> [↩︎](#fnref4)
5. <https://github.com/digint/btrbk> [↩︎](#fnref5)



*（题图：MJ/ad8a61ed-ce6f-409e-b503-69104dd71149）*




---


via: <https://fedoramagazine.org/working-with-btrfs-snapshots/>


作者：[Andreas Hartmann](https://fedoramagazine.org/author/hartan/) 选题：[lujun9972](https://github.com/lujun9972) 译者：[A2ureStone](https://github.com/A2ureStone) 校对：[wxy](https://github.com/wxy)


本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创编译，[Linux中国](https://linux.cn/) 荣誉推出


OK
This article will explore what Btrfs snapshots are, how they work, and how you can benefit from taking snapshots in every-day situations. This is part of a series that takes a closer look at Btrfs, the default filesystem for Fedora Workstation and Fedora Silverblue since Fedora Linux 33.

In case you missed it, here’s the previous article from this series: [https://fedoramagazine.org/working-with-btrfs-subvolumes/](https://fedoramagazine.org/working-with-btrfs-subvolumes/)

## Introduction

Imagine you work on a file over extended periods of time, repeatedly adding changes and undoing them. Then, at some point you realize: Parts of the changes you undid two hours ago would be very helpful now. And yesterday you had already changed this particular bit, too, before you trashed that design. But of course, because you regularly save your files, old changes are lost. Many people have probably experienced a situation like this before. Wouldn’t it be great if you could recover old file versions without having to manually copy them at regular intervals?

This is just one typical situation where Btrfs snapshots can help you out. When used correctly, snapshots also give you a great backup solution for your PC.

Below you will find a lot of examples related to snapshots. If you want to follow along, you must have access to a Btrfs filesystem and root access. You can check the file system of a directory using the following command:

$ findmnt -no FSTYPE /home btrfs

Here the *findmnt * command shows the type of filesystem for your */home/* directory. If it says *btrfs*, you’re all set. Let’s create a new directory in which to perform some experiments:

$ mkdir ~/btrfs-snapshot-test $ cd ~/btrfs-snapshot-test

In the text below, you will find lots of command responses in boxes such as shown above. Please keep in mind while reading/comparing command output that the **box contents may be wrapped at the end of the line**. This may make it difficult to recognize long lines that are broken across multiple lines for readability. When in doubt, try to resize your browser window and see how the text behaves!

## Snapshots in Btrfs

Let’s start with an elementary question: What is a Btrfs snapshot? If you look in the Docs [[1]](#sources) and Wiki [[2]](#sources), you won’t immediately find an answer to this question. In fact, it is nowhere to be found in the “Features” section. If you search a little, you will find snapshots mentioned extensively along with Btrfs subvolumes [[3]](https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Subvolumes.html). So now what?

Remember that snapshots were both mentioned in the previous articles of this series? There it said:

What is the advantage of CoW? In simple terms: a history of the modified and edited files can be kept. Btrfs will keep the references to the old file versions (inodes) somewhere they can be easily accessed. This reference is a

snapshot: An image of the filesystem state at some point in time.[Working with Btrfs: General Concepts]

and also:

Another advantage of separating

/and/homeis that you can takesnapshotsseparately. A subvolume is a boundary for snapshots, and snapshots will never contain the contents of other subvolumes below the subvolume that the snapshot is taken of.[Working with Btrfs: Subvolumes]

It seems snapshots have something to do with Btrfs subvolumes. You may have heard about snapshots in other contexts before, for example with LVM, the Logical Volume Manager. While technically they serve the same purpose, they are different in terms of how they reach their goal.

Every Btrfs snapshot is a subvolume. However, not every subvolume is a snapshot. The difference is in what the subvolume contains. A snapshot is a subvolume with added content: it holds references to current and/or past versions of files (inodes). Let’s see where snapshots come from!

## Creating Btrfs snapshots

To use snapshots, you need a Btrfs subvolume to take snapshots of. Let’s create one inside our test folder (~/btrfs-snapshot-test):

$ cd ~/btrfs-snapshot-test $ sudo btrfs subvolume create demo Create subvolume './demo' $ sudo chown -R $(id -u):$(id -g) demo/ $ cd demo

Since by default Btrfs subvolumes are owned by root, you must call *chown* to modify the files in the subvolume to be owned by a regular user. Now add a few files inside it:

$ touch foo bar baz $ echo "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, " > foo

Your directory now looks something like this:

$ ls -l total 4 -rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 0 Dec 20 08:11 bar -rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 0 Dec 20 08:11 baz -rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 29 Dec 20 08:11 foo

Let’s create the very first snapshot from that:

$ cd .. $ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot demo demo-1 Create a snapshot of 'demo' in './demo-1'

And that’s it. Let’s see what was achieved:

$ ls -l total 0 drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan 18 Dec 20 08:11 demo drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan 18 Dec 20 08:11 demo-1 $ tree . ├── demo │ ├── bar │ ├── baz │ └── foo └── demo-1 ├── bar ├── baz └── foo 2 directories, 6 files

It seems it made a copy! To verify, let’s read the contents of *foo* from the snapshot:

$ cat demo/foo Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, $ cat demo-1/foo Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,

The real effect becomes apparent when we modify the original file:

$ echo "consectetur adipiscing elit, " >> demo/foo $ cat demo/foo Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, $ cat demo-1/foo Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,

This shows that the snapshot still holds the “old” version of the data: The content of *foo* hasn’t changed. So far, you could have achieved the exact same thing with a simple file copy. You can now go ahead and continue working on the old file, too:

$ echo "sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt" >> demo-1/foo $ cat demo-1/foo Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt

Under the hood, however, our snapshot is in fact a new Btrfs subvolume. You can verify this with the following command:

$ sudo btrfs subvolume list -o . ID 259 gen 265 top level 256 path home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo ID 260 gen 264 top level 256 path home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo-1

## Btrfs snapshots vs. file copies

So what’s the point of all this? Up until now snapshots seem to be a complicated way to copy files around. In fact, there is more to snapshots than meets the eye. Let’s create a bigger file:

$ dd if=/dev/urandom of=demo/bigfile bs=1M count=512 512+0 records in 512+0 records out 536870912 bytes (537 MB, 512 MiB) copied, 1.3454 s, 399 MB/s

There is now a new file *demo/bigfile* that is 512 MiB in size. Let’s make another snapshot so you don’t lose it when you modify the data:

$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot demo demo-2 Create a snapshot of 'demo' in './demo-2'

Now let’s simulate some changes by appending a small string to the file:

$ echo "small changes" >> demo/bigfile

Here’s the resulting file structure:

$ tree . ├── demo │ ├── bar │ ├── baz │ ├── bigfile │ └── foo ├── demo-1 │ ├── bar │ ├── baz │ └── foo └── demo-2 ├── bar ├── baz ├── bigfile └── foo 3 directories, 11 files

But the real magic happens somewhere else. Had you copied *demo/bigfile*, you would now have two files of about 512 MiB in size with mostly the same content. However, since they are distinct copies, they would occupy about 1 GiB of storage total. Keep in mind that the difference between both files is hardly more than 10 Bytes – that’s almost nothing compared to the original file size.

Btrfs snapshots work different than file copies: They keep references to current and past inodes instead. When you appended the change to the file, under the hood Btrfs allocated some more space to store the changes in and added a reference to this new data to the original inode. The previous contents remain untouched. If it helps your mental model, you can think of this as “storing” merely the difference between the original file and the modified version.

Let’s have a look at the effect of this:

$ sudo compsize . Processed 11 files, 5 regular extents (9 refs), 3 inline. Type Perc Disk Usage Uncompressed Referenced TOTAL 100% 512M 512M 1.0G none 100% 512M 512M 1.0G

The interesting figure here is seen in line “TOTAL”:

- “Referenced” is the total size of all the files in the current directory, summed up
- “Disk Usage” is the amount of storage space allocated on your disk to store the files

While you have a total of 1 GiB files, it takes merely 512 MiB to store them.

## Btrfs snapshots and backups

So far, in this article, you have seen how to create Btrfs snapshots and what makes them so special. One may be tempted to think: If I take a series of Btrfs snapshots locally on my PC, I have a solid backup strategy. **This is not the case**. If the underlying data, which is shared by Btrfs subvolumes, is accidentally damaged (by something outside of Btrfs’ influence, e.g. cosmic rays), all the subvolumes pointing to this data contain the same error.

To turn the snapshots into real backups you should store them on a different Btrfs filesystem, such as on an external drive. For the purposes of this article let’s create a new Btrfs filesystem contained inside a file and mount it to simulate an external drive. If you have an external drive formatted with Btrfs lying around, feel free to substitute all the paths mentioned in the following commands to try it out! Let’s create a new Btrfs filesystem:

**Note**: The commands below will create a new file of 8 GB size on your filesystem. If you want to follow the steps below, please ensure you have at least 8 GB of disk space available. Do not allocate less than 8 GB to the file, as Btrfs may otherwise encounter issues during mounting.

$ truncate -s 8G btrfs_filesystem.img $ sudo mkfs.btrfs -L "backup-drive" btrfs_filesystem.img btrfs-progs v5.18 See http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org for more information. [ ... ] Devices: ID SIZE PATH 1 8.00GiB btrfs_filesystem.img

These commands created a new file of 8 GB in size named *btrfs_filesystem.img* and formatted a Btrfs filesystem inside it. Now you can mount it as if it were an external drive:

$ mkdir backup-drive $ sudo mount btrfs_filesystem.img backup-drive $ sudo chown -R $(id -u):$(id -g) backup-drive $ ls -lh total 4.7M drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan 0 Dec 20 08:35 backup-drive -rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 8.0G Dec 20 08:37 btrfs_filesystem.img drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan 32 Dec 20 08:14 demo drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan 18 Dec 20 08:11 demo-1 drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan 32 Dec 20 08:14 demo-2

Great, now there is an independent Btrfs filesystem mounted under *backup-drive*! Let’s try to take another snapshot and place it there:

$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot demo backup-drive/demo-3 Create a snapshot of 'demo' in 'backup-drive/demo-3' ERROR: cannot snapshot 'demo': Invalid cross-device link

What happened? Well, you tried to take a snapshot of *demo* and store it in a different Btrfs filesystem (a different device from Btrfs’ point of view). Remember that a Btrfs subvolume only holds references to files and their contents (inodes)? This is exactly the problem: The files and contents exist in our home filesystem, but not in the newly-created *backup-drive*. You have to find a way to transfer the subvolume along with its contents to the new filesystem.

### Storing snapshots on a different Btrfs filesystem

The Btrfs utilities include two special commands for this purpose. Let’s see how they work first:

$ sudo btrfs send demo | sudo btrfs receive backup-drive/ ERROR: subvolume /home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo is not read-only ERROR: empty stream is not considered valid

Another error! This time it tells you that the subvolume we’re trying to transfer is not read-only. This is true: You can write new contents to all of the snapshots/subvolumes created so far. You can create read-only snapshots like this:

$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot -r demo demo-3-ro Create a readonly snapshot of 'demo' in './demo-3-ro'

Unlike previously, here the *-r* option is added to the *snapshot* subcommand. This creates a read-only snapshot, which is easily verified:

$ touch demo-3-ro/another-file touch: cannot touch 'demo-3-ro/another-file': Read-only file system

Now you can retry transferring the subvolumes:

$ sudo btrfs send demo-3-ro | sudo btrfs receive backup-drive/ At subvol demo-3-ro At subvol demo-3-ro $ tree ├── backup-drive │ └── demo-3-ro │ ├── bar │ ├── baz │ ├── bigfile │ └── foo ├── btrfs_filesystem.img ├── demo [ ... ] └── demo-3-ro ├── bar ├── baz ├── bigfile └── foo 6 directories, 20 files

It worked! You have successfully transferred a read-only snapshot of our original subvolume *demo* to an external Btrfs filesystem.

### Storing snapshots on non-Btrfs filesystems

Above you have seen how you can store Btrfs subvolumes/snapshots on another Btrfs filesystem. But what can you do if you do not have another Btrfs filesystem and cannot create one, for example because the external drives need a filesystem that allows compatibility with Windows or MacOS hosts? In such cases you can store subvolumes in files:

$ sudo btrfs send -f demo-3-ro-subvolume.btrfs demo-3-ro At subvol demo-3-ro $ ls -lh demo-3-ro-subvolume.btrfs -rw-------. 1 root root 513M Dec 21 10:39 demo-3-ro-subvolume.btrfs

The file *demo-3-ro-subvolume.btrfs* now contains everything that is needed to recreate the *demo-3-ro* subvolume at a later point in time.

### Incrementally sending subvolumes

If you perform this action repeatedly for different subvolumes, you will notice at some point that the different subvolumes do not share their file contents any more. This is because when sending a subvolume such as above, all the data needed to recreate this standalone subvolume is transferred to the target. You can, however, instruct Btrfs to only send the difference between two subvolumes to the target! This so-called incremental send will ensure that shared references remain shared between the subvolumes. To demonstrate this, add a few more changes to our original subvolume:

$ echo "a few more changes" >> demo/bigfile

Next create another read-only snapshot:

$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot -r demo demo-4-ro Create a readonly snapshot of 'demo' in './demo-4-ro'

And now send it:

$ sudo btrfs send -p demo-3-ro demo-4-ro | sudo btrfs receive backup-drive At subvol demo-4-ro At snapshot demo-4-ro

In the command above, the *-p* option specifies a parent subvolume, against which the differences are calculated. It is important to keep in mind that both the source and target Btrfs filesystem must contain the same, unmodified parent subvolume! Ensure that the new subvolume is really there:

$ ls backup-drive/ demo-3-ro demo-4-ro $ ls -lR backup-drive/demo-4-ro/ backup-drive/demo-4-ro/: total 524296 -rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 0 Dec 20 08:11 bar -rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 0 Dec 20 08:11 baz -rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 536870945 Dec 21 10:49 bigfile -rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 59 Dec 20 08:13 foo

But how do you know whether the incremental send only transferred the difference between both subvolumes? Let’s transfer the data stream to a file and see how big it is:

$ sudo btrfs send -f demo-4-ro-diff.btrfs -p demo-3-ro demo-4-ro At subvol demo-4-ro $ ls -l demo-4-ro-diff.btrfs -rw-------. 1 root root 315 Dec 21 10:55 demo-4-ro-diff.btrfs

According to ls, the file is merely 315 bytes in size! This means that the incremental send only transferred the changes between the two subvolumes, along with additional Btrfs-specific metadata.

### Restoring subvolumes from snapshots

Before continuing, let’s do some cleaning up of the things you don’t need at the moment:

$ sudo rm -rf demo-4-ro-diff.btrfs demo-3-ro-subvolume.btrfs $ sudo btrfs subvolume delete demo-1 demo-2 demo-3-ro demo-4-ro $ ls -l total 531516 drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan 36 Dec 21 10:50 backup-drive -rw-r--r--. 1 hartan hartan 8589934592 Dec 21 10:51 btrfs_filesystem.img drwxr-xr-x. 1 hartan hartan 32 Dec 20 08:14 demo

So far you have managed to create read/write and read-only snapshots of Btrfs subvolumes and send them to an external location. In order to turn this into a backup strategy, however, there has to be a way to send the subvolumes back to the original filesystem and make them writable again. For this purpose, let’s move the demo subvolume somewhere else and try to recreate it from the most recent snapshot. First: Rename the “broken” subvolume. It will be deleted once the restore was successful:

$ mv demo demo-broken

Second: Transfer the most recent snapshot back to this filesystem:

$ sudo btrfs send backup-drive/demo-4-ro | sudo btrfs receive . At subvol backup-drive/demo-4-ro At subvol demo-4-ro [hartan@fedora btrfs-snapshot-test]$ ls backup-drive btrfs_filesystem.img demo-4-ro demo-broken

Third: Create a read-write subvolume from the snapshot:

$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot demo-4-ro demo Create a snapshot of 'demo-4-ro' in './demo' $ ls backup-drive btrfs_filesystem.img demo demo-4-ro demo-broken

The last step is important: You cannot just rename *demo-4-ro* to *demo*, because it would still be a read-only subvolume! Finally you can check whether everything you need is there:

$ tree demo demo ├── bar ├── baz ├── bigfile └── foo 0 directories, 4 files $ tail -c -19 demo/bigfile a few more changes

The last command above tells you that the last 19 characters in *bigfile* are in fact the change last performed. At this point, you may want to copy recent changes from *demo-broken* to the new *demo* subvolume. Since you didn’t perform any other changes, you can now delete the obsolete subvolumes:

$ sudo btrfs subvolume delete demo-4-ro demo-broken Delete subvolume (no-commit): '/home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo-4-ro' Delete subvolume (no-commit): '/home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo-broken'

And that’s it! You have successfully restored the *demo* subvolume from a snapshot that was previously stored on a different Btrfs filesystem (external media).

## Subvolumes as boundary for snapshots

In the second article of this series I mentioned that subvolumes are boundaries for snapshots, but what exactly does that mean? In simple terms, a snapshot of a subvolume will only contain the content of this particular subvolume, and none of the nested subvolumes below. Let’s have a look at this:

$ sudo btrfs subvolume create demo/nested Create subvolume 'demo/nested' $ sudo chown -R $(id -u):$(id -g) demo/nested $ touch demo/nested/another_file

Let’s take a snapshot as before:

$ sudo btrfs subvolume snapshot demo demo-nested Create a snapshot of 'demo' in './demo-nested'

And check out the contents:

$ tree demo-nested demo-nested ├── bar ├── baz ├── bigfile ├── foo └── nested 1 directory, 4 files $ tree demo demo ├── bar ├── baz ├── bigfile ├── foo └── nested └── another_file 1 directory, 5 files

Notice that *another_file* is missing, even though the folder *nested* is present. This happens because *nested* is a subvolume: The snapshot of *demo* contains the folder (mountpoint) for the nested subvolume, but its contents aren’t present. Currently there is no way to perform snapshots recursively to include nested subvolumes. However, we can take advantage of this to exclude folders from snapshots! This is typically useful for data that you can reproduce easily, or that will rarely change. Examples include virtual machine or container images, movies, game files and more.

Before we wrap up the article, let’s remove everything we created while testing:

$ sudo btrfs subvolume delete demo/nested demo demo-nested Delete subvolume (no-commit): '/home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo/nested' Delete subvolume (no-commit): '/home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo' Delete subvolume (no-commit): '/home/hartan/btrfs-snapshot-test/demo-nested' $ sudo umount backup-drive $ cd .. $ rm -rf btrfs-snapshot-test/

## Final thoughts on Btrfs-based backups

If you decide you want to use Btrfs to perform regular backups of your data, you may want to use a tool that automates this task for you. The Btrfs wiki has a list of backup tools specialized on Btrfs [[4]](#sources). On this page you will also find another summary of the steps to perform Btrfs backups by hand. Personally, I have had a lot of good experiences with *btrbk* [[5]](#sources) and I am using it to perform my own backups. In addition to backups, *btrbk* can also keep a list of Btrfs snapshots locally on your PC. I use this to safeguard against accidental data deletion.

If you want to know more about performing backups using Btrfs, leave a comment below and I’ll consider writing a follow-up article that deals exclusively with this topic.

## Conclusion

This article investigated Btrfs snapshots, which are Btrfs subvolumes under the hood. You learned how to create read/write and read-only snapshots, and how this mechanism can help safeguard against data loss.

The next articles in this series will deal with:

- Compression – Transparently saving storage space
- Qgroups – Limiting your filesystem size
- RAID – Replace your mdadm configuration

If there are other topics related to Btrfs that you want to know more about, have a look at the Btrfs Wiki [[2]](#sources) and Docs [[1]](#sources). Don’t forget to check out the first two articles of this series, if you haven’t already! If you feel that there is something missing from this article series, let me know in the comments below. See you in the next article!

## Sources

[1]: [https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Introduction.html](https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Introduction.html)

[2]: [https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page](https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page)

[3]: [https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Subvolumes.html](https://btrfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Subvolumes.html)

[4]: [https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Incremental_Backup#Available_Backup_Tools](https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Incremental_Backup#Available_Backup_Tools)

[5]: [https://github.com/digint/btrbk](https://github.com/digint/btrbk)

## Esc

Best tutorial. Thanks

## conrad

It looks complicated I think I’ll install the fedora with FAT32 or EXT2

## Richard England

Unless you have a need to get into the details of the file system you can utilize Btrfs like you would ext4 or (shudder) fat32. I ran with the default Btrfs for almost a year before getting interested enough to find out what it might do for me and how to use it.

## Kai Steiner

Hello all!

And first things first: Happy new year everybody!

Very nice article about Btrfs. But something more for experts in my view. Fedora has defaulted to Btrfs since F33, but for the average Jane and Joe, this move didn’t change much at all. My impression is that the community hasn’t yet developed a lot of real ideas about how to use the possibilities of the new file system. The most obvious would be to use Snapper to create system snapshots, as openSUSE has been doing for ages. Even small Linux distributions like the Debian-based SprialLinux and most recently Siduction have managed to integrate Snapper by default. Of course I can also install Snapper in Fedora any day an hope that I will be able to configure the tool properly afterwards. But for a normal user it would be nice if this could be made available preconfigured, e.g. as an opt-in in Anaconda or every time I stick to the default file system Btrfs during the installation. Just a thought.

## Andreas Hartmann

You’re right, there isn’t any “default” tooling that makes use of Btrfs such as snapper in Fedora (yet?). Personally I’ve used OpenSUSE and snapper for a while but, since I didn’t understand how Btrfs subvolumes/snapshots work back then, it only filled up my disk and that was that.

If you have some particular use case in mind that would benefit Jane and Joe, maybe I can give write an article for that in the future? I have some ideas of my own already, but I’m always curious to hear what other people want/need.

## Arthur

There is btrfs-assistant! It’s an awesome easy to use tool to manage btrfs and it integrates with snapper.

## Adam Bolte

Loving this series. Eager to read your upcoming RAID and Qgroups coverage.

I’ve recently replaced an mdadm+LVM2+Xen VM setup with systemd/machinectl containers in btrfs subvolumes on btrfs RAID10, and the more I read, the more considerations there are that I become aware of, and the more confidence I gain in this new(-ish, to me anyway,) technology. And Happy New Year!

## Emanuele

Thanks and congratulations for this tutorial!

Only a clarification:

“Since by default Btrfs subvolumes are owned by root, you must call chown to modify the files in the subvolume to be owned by a regular user. Now add a few files inside it:”

I’ve been using Btrfs for years and can create subvolumes per user, did I miss something?

emanu@fedora ~/test> btrfs subvolume create pippo

Create subvolume ‘./pippo’

emanu@fedora ~/test> ls -l

totale 0

drwxr-xr-x. 1 emanu emanu 0 4 gen 21.06 pippo/

emanu@fedora ~/test> cd pippo

emanu@fedora ~/t/pippo> touch foo bar baz

emanu@fedora ~/t/pippo> echo “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, ” > foo

emanu@fedora ~/t/pippo> ls

bar baz foo

emanu@fedora ~/t/pippo> cd ..

emanu@fedora ~/test> rm -R pippo/

emanu@fedora ~/test>

## Andreas Hartmann

You’re right, I honestly wasn’t aware you can create subvolumes as regular user. Thanks for sharing!

## Terrence Kovacs

Thanks for the informative and detailed article. I have been using btrfs for several years and one thing still eludes me. When a filesystem fills my attempt to clean up by removing old files often gets me no free space as the snapshots hold onto the blocks. How do you handle that problem?

## Gregory Bartholomew

I think you have to delete the snapshots. 🙂

## Terrrence Kovacs

Indeed. Since often the files are old and unused for sometime you end up needing to delete all your snapshots. Not a very satisfying solution.

## Gregory Bartholomew

It is easy to transfer them to a larger external device though. And it is often quite quick too, even if the external device is slow, because you can send incremental snapshots that only transfer what has changed since the previous one. That’s what I do — I keep my older snapshots archived on an external device. Not forever though. Files you want to keep need to always be present in the newest snapshots else they’ll be lost when the last snapshot that references them gets deleted.

## Didier Spaier

Hello,

very god series of articles, on of the best introduction (as : easy to grasp) to btrfs I have found so far (and I have read a lot of docs).

A bit opportunistic: I have written a shell script named absm for “a btrfs snpshots manager” (yes, one more!), accessible to the blind (as the Slint distribution that I maintain). It has no dependency on other tools, includes boot entries for snaphosts in the GRUB menu and has been tested in Fedora 37 among others:

https://github.com/DidierSpaier/absm

## Chad Dougherty

This is an excellent series of articles. Thank you so much for posting them!

You might want to add the btrfs tag to them so that they’re more readily accessible. See, for example, https://fedoramagazine.org/btrfs-snapshots-backup-incremental/

Thanks again!

## Richard England

Excellent point. The missing tags was an oversight by the editors and has been corrected. Thank you for pointing this out.

## Chad Dougherty

I think maybe it’s still missing on the second post in the series: https://fedoramagazine.org/working-with-btrfs-subvolumes/