Create system backups

System maintenance > Create system backups

Overview

System backups are created with timeshift, an important utility tool that creates "snapshots" of key system settings and files.

These snapshots can be used to restore the system to a prior state if the current state becomes unbootable or unusable.

How to create a snapshot

Create a snapshot on demand (unscheduled) by using:

sudo timeshift --create

To first check if a snapshot is due, then create one if needed, use:

sudo timeshift --check

Important

It is highly recommended to create daily backups and before making changes to important system settings (such as config files).

See: Timeshift wiki, Restore system with snapshot

timeshift options

Snapshot type

RSYNC snapshots are incremental copies of changed system files.

• Keeps hard-links for files unchanged from the previous snapshot.

• Take up more space but are much more simple to set up.

BTRFS snapshots are only available on systems that are set up with a BTRFS file system.

• Much quicker and space-efficient.

• Requires more technical knowledge of files systems to properly configure.

Back up location

It is recommended to set snapshots to save onto an external drive, or an internal drive separate from the system's boot partition.

• This eases the process of recovering to a previous state if the current one becomes unbootable.

• BTRFS snapshots can only be saved onto the same device that the system's root partition is located on.

Note

While you can select the specific drive/device to save snapshots to,timeshift's default directory path on the device cannot be changed.

Saved data

To save disk space, timeshift does not save any user files by default.

Setting timeshift to save non-system files will use a very large amount of disk space, especially with automatic snapshots enabled.

Snapshot limits

Once the number of snapshots reaches the set limit, timeshift deletes the oldest snapshot of that category. The exact amounts vary between users. Here is an example of snapshot limits:

• 4 monthly
• 4 weekly
• 7 daily
• 5 hourly
• 5 boot

Scheduled snapshots

Users can set up cron to schedule time-based jobs.

When configured, the system automatically generates scheduled snapshots up to the set limit, and deletes old snapshots.

Tip

You can set up an automated process to take snapshots at scheduled intervals by enabling the cron scheduler. This must be manually enabled.

See: Enable the cron scheduler