Can the config file be configured for use without subvolumes?

[Lynd]

I am trying to make snapshots of entire volume. Can the config file be configured for use without subvolumes? Commenting out the subvolume line leads to errors.

Thanks in advance

[digint]

btrbk does not support recursive snapshots of btrfs filesystems, if that's what you are asking. You have to manually configure every btrfs subvolume to be backuped. btrbk has a <volume>/<subvolume> notation (which is not the best naming for it I must admit). Make sure to understand the concept described in the btrbk.conf.5 man page.

Check the FAQ if your question was "Why is it not possible to backup '/' (btrfs root) ?".

[digint]

It seems that some distros, when choosing "root on btrfs", install the rootfs directly to btrfs root (i.e. subvolid=0), which I discourage to do. There might be a reason for this (apart from being the simplest approach), but in my opinion it makes things more complicated/confusing when it comes to snapshotting and backups.

A simple and consistent setup may look like this: Sysadmin Guide.

[Lynd]

Thank you. On my setup, I am only using btrfs on a volume that is used for data. I have this volume mounted at /mnt/data which contains many files and directories. If I understand correctly, I must establish separate volumes for each subdirectory of /mnt/data and I can not take snapshots of the /mnt/data/. By the way, the link to the FAQs is broken.

[digint]

Correct, you have to create separate subvolumes in /mnt/data.

I updated the FAQ (commit: eae6469). I hope this answers your question.

[digint]

Closing this issue, as this is documented in FAQ, and we now have subvolume wildcard support in >=v0.23.0