Re: Testing release for BTRFS/Snapshots feature

[Stefan Schantl <stefan.schantl@ipfire.org>]

Hello Adolf,

thanks for joining the conversation.
> 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.

Yes indeed, it should be possible to restore a backup which has been
taken on a different filesystem. I did not tested this yet, but there
shouldn't be any issues to be expected.

Thanks for the hint, we defenitely should drop a few lines about this
in the wiki and/or release notes when we are in a release stage.

Best regards,

-Stefan
> 
> 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
> > 
>