From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail02.haj.ipfire.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by mail02.haj.ipfire.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4g5Qxp0VNPz30HY for ; Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:36:46 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail01.ipfire.org (mail01.haj.ipfire.org [172.28.1.202]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits) key-exchange x25519 server-signature ECDSA (secp384r1 raw public key) server-digest SHA384 client-signature RSA-PSS (4096 bits) client-digest SHA256) (Client CN "mail01.haj.ipfire.org", Issuer "R12" (not verified)) by mail02.haj.ipfire.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 4g5Qxk3dCVz2xMP for ; Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:36:42 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (localhost [127.0.0.1]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits) key-exchange x25519 server-signature RSA-PSS (4096 bits) server-digest SHA256) (No client certificate requested) by mail01.ipfire.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 4g5Qxj3lsCz6kf; Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:36:41 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=ed25519-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=ipfire.org; s=202003ed25519; t=1777487801; h=from:from:reply-to:subject:subject:date:date:message-id:message-id: to:to:cc:cc:mime-version:mime-version:content-type:content-type: content-transfer-encoding:content-transfer-encoding: in-reply-to:in-reply-to:references:references; bh=vqHFKSTVCU+WysN0ZlCgbJ2Thdl2fnUT3nSiafr1GvU=; b=YaoAanzsLpz4K7zeJbiAWZKlit0391aSCbsXkju8oRG0mcZo2coWx5HkcMaPnZTwXB5D4m YKxND4WPfKDvLaAw== DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=ipfire.org; s=202003rsa; t=1777487801; h=from:from:reply-to:subject:subject:date:date:message-id:message-id: to:to:cc:cc:mime-version:mime-version:content-type:content-type: content-transfer-encoding:content-transfer-encoding: in-reply-to:in-reply-to:references:references; bh=vqHFKSTVCU+WysN0ZlCgbJ2Thdl2fnUT3nSiafr1GvU=; b=HmJ3gJ1/OsY0dhMy19lX0UIw0tWSU+aw2bbL8XJI+wx9+hHGsqpeqWQ8kNVu7onvbRu4Nm gqMePnfRGF2STHr48DI8vUQbkDadrovevuZiS1GTdWuuASP3li6ysq57848Cx8M0d4LSTr CMfv0ZWOvnDPkBKlySdUpYyBqE6JYmBspzoR98gBhP1Pu53x581mnRKKE6/QgCkNHR20ZM LS0NA9+XJGvJkkJK1oOY77cB6xk2lykLk1M9R2Sw0RgtUT4g9BYzDJMmTX6JmgQjp9EuzE 0kTgkHgNvh2WsqQJWrSbyn89Ozq9NXzHgKGgauKnonfwrc0+B7rT91PHm0ZTWg== Message-ID: <6d8f15e3-079a-4601-951c-d607dee51e37@ipfire.org> Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2026 20:36:38 +0200 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: Sender: Mail-Followup-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: Testing release for BTRFS/Snapshots feature To: Stefan Schantl References: Content-Language: en-GB Cc: "IPFire: Development-List" From: Adolf Belka In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Stefan, On 29/04/2026 19:25, Stefan Schantl wrote: > Hello list followers, > > a lot of time has been passed since the initial support for BTRFS has > been introduced in IPFire. Sadly the further development process has > been slowed down significantly - mainly because of personal reasons and > as a result of them, the lack of spare time on my side. > > All the more I'm very happy to announce the next milestone on this list > and share the current development state. The roadmap on our wiki page > can be found here: https://www.ipfire.org/docs/roadmap/btrfs > > The code to take snapshots, manage them, boot into a certain snapshot > or to restore them finally has been arrived. All these actions easily > can be accessed from the CGI page for backups on the IPFire WUI. On > this page a new section called "Snapshots" will be displayed in case > BTRFS has been chosen during the install process of IPFire. > > The page layout and style is not final yet, but everything is expected > to work properly. In case you have any ideas how to improve the look > and feel of the CGI page please provide some feedback here. > > The grub boot menu automatically will be extended when the first > snapshot has been created with an additional entry to access and boot > into a select-able snapshot in case the system broke or for any other > testing purposes. > > I've also extend the code of the pakfire package manager to create a > snapshot before installing a core update. > > To summarize the above the snapshot feature would be a big step > forward, because it a allows anybody to go back if some unexpected > error occur after an update, a testing update breaks anything, for > hunting when a certain bug has been seen for the first time, etc... > > To took the last remaining steps and get the feature into the > distribution some more testing and feedback is required. Therefore I've > backed and uploaded an ISO image for all who are interested and want to > join testing. > > Sadly IPFire has to be re-installed with BTRFS because there is no way > to migrate an existing installation to a different file system. IPFire has to be installed from fresh to get the btrfs filesystem but can you confirm that then you can do a restore from an IPFire backup from an ext4 filesystem to get all settings, without any issues due to the filesystem. My understanding is that bis the case but I would just like to have it confirmed. Regards, Adolf. > > The current (and may later) images can be found here: > > https://people.ipfire.org/~stevee/BTRFS/ > > According to testing and feedback there are some additional questions > which appeared during development and needs some attention: > > * Should BTRFS become the default selected file system during > installation? (At the moment this is ext4) > > * Should the pre-generated images use BTRFS? (At the moment they are > also ext4) > > * Do we want an automatic snapshot for each single core update, or do > we want a single one in case multiple core updates will be installed in > one go? (Currently I've implemented a snapshot for each single update) > > * Maybe I missed something - feel free to ask any questions or share > your opinions here. > > A big thanks in advance to anyone who wants to contribute and helps to > finalize this amazing feature. > > Best regards, > > -Stefan >