Trying Out Ubuntu 20.04 With ZFS + Zsys Automated APT Snapshots

[k1e0x]

I tried this out, it's nice.

Here is how you use it:
Step 1 - Install Ubuntu on ZFS in the installer.

That's it, there is no step 2. When you update you just have them and can roll back in Grub should you ever need to. A user would never even need to know.

[starshipeleven]

but you can touch them.
and if you change their contents and roll back afterwards your changes have gone away. thats not way i expect from a snapshot made by a package manager

see this post in a slightly older thread about how OpenSUSE is dealing with splitting folders into subvolumes on btrfs to avoid snapshotting stuff it shouldn't https://www.phoronix.com/forums/foru...24#post1164224

on ZFS you can do the same

[starshipeleven]

well the same is easily done with lvm/ext4.
i just dont think filesystem snapshot are the correct way to deal with package upgrades.
there are too many folders who need its own partition in this case (eg srv home)

ZFS and btrfs integrate LVM-like functionality to split "folders" and use different filesystem options for the stuff inside them, so you can easily keep folders in/out of this snapshotting, OpenSUSE does this since years ago on btrfs.

[k1e0x]

well the same is easily done with lvm/ext4.
i just dont think filesystem snapshot are the correct way to deal with package upgrades.

there are too many folders who need its own partition in this case (eg srv home)

Having a snapshot like this is very handy in the fact that it's automatic and you never know when you'll need it. I've rolled back root a few times this way in 10 years when updates go sideways. There is very little downside to having it. ZFS can undo anything you can do to the OS pretty much.

ZFS doesn't use partitions per say. It's "datasets" are separate from the OS's view but use the same storage pool and don't have a fixed size. Pretty much obsoletes partitions. In theory you could have Ubuntu, Gentoo, FreeBSD and ?macOS hack all installed to the same disk all booting from ZFS without any partitioning and no wasted space just select the OS/root combo from the boot loader and go. Example of someone that did this.

So it still doesn't take advantage of ZFS encryption, does it? That would be kind of neat if you could have a ZFS-encrypted drive without the extra layer of LUKS. And ideally the installer should let you select which datasets you wish to apply the encryption on.

They don't.. at least in grub or plymouth yet. You can manually do it and create an init script if you want /home encrypted. If you want just a folder like /home/user/private encrypted it's very easy to do after you log in.. but yeah, they need to add the gui elements.

Does anyone know if it's easy to set up a Time Machine-like backup (automatic, incremental, filesystem backup) to FreeNAS like on macOS? I usually just need to turn on my MacBook Air when I'm home and it automatically takes a Time Machine backup which is sooo nice! I would like to do the same on my ThinkPad if possible

There is no GUI, but it's pretty easy to do this nightly from cron, you can use any storage.. it doesn't have to be FreeNAS (google drive is an option if you use ZFS encryption) It would be really sweet if they added GUI elements to do this... and I'm sure they are on it. They are getting there, adding the boot environments to grub is a nice step.. lets get the rest done now Ubuntu.

[starshipeleven]

OSTree achieves OS "snapshots" without btrfs or zfs.

and has the added benefit you don't need the snapshot to exist in the first place to roll to it.

and the drawback that you are wasting a ton of space unless the underlying filesystem supports reflink.

So far the only filesystems that support reflink are xfs, btrfs and ZFS.

[veeableful]

Does anyone know if it's easy to set up a Time Machine-like backup (automatic, incremental, filesystem backup) to FreeNAS like on macOS? I usually just need to turn on my MacBook Air when I'm home and it automatically takes a Time Machine backup which is sooo nice! I would like to do the same on my ThinkPad if possible

[Chugworth]

LUKS or I won't use it.

Well if they're going with ZFS, they might as well take advantage of its encryption. Besides, "zfs send -w" is a pretty useful feature when it comes to keeping encrypted backups.

[elatllat]

LUKS or I won't use it.

[Chugworth]

So it still doesn't take advantage of ZFS encryption, does it? That would be kind of neat if you could have a ZFS-encrypted drive without the extra layer of LUKS. And ideally the installer should let you select which datasets you wish to apply the encryption on.

[jacob]

Phoronix: Trying Out Ubuntu 20.04 With ZFS + Zsys Automated APT Snapshots

As part of the ZFS improvements for Ubuntu 20.04 with Canonical's Zsys initiative is the ability to automatically take snapshots on APT operations for being able to do a system rollback/revert if necessary following package management changes. I've begun trying out the ZFS/Zsys changes for Ubuntu 20.04 and so far is working well...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...0.04-ZFS-Snaps

apt-btrfs-snapshot provides the same functionality with BTRFS. Install it, forget it and use apt as before, it Just Works. On one plus side, you get automatic snapshots before each upgrade. On the other plus side, you don't have to put up with that repulsive abomination from hell that is ZFS.