ZFS-AUTO-SNAPSHOT(8)

✨ NAME ✨

zfs-auto-snapshot — the girl that takes regular ZFS snapshots for you 💅

okay so bestie, welcome to the zfs-auto-snapshot(8) page from the System Administration Commands section. she's an 8, she's iconic, she's about to make your datasets immortal. 🫶

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

zfs-auto-snapshot [options] [-l label] <'//' | name [name...]>

that's it. that's the whole vibe check. ✨

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

zfs-auto-snapshot automatically creates, rotates, and destroys snapshots for all your ZFS datasets. no cap. she does the whole thing by herself.

and she's compatible with both zfsonlinux and zfs-fuse — so whoever your ZFS provider is, she's not gonna ghost you. 💖

👑 OPTIONS 👑

like forty options and every single one is serving. let's go. 🎀

• --default-exclude — so by default, zfs-auto-snapshot snapshots all datasets except the ones where the user-property com.sun:auto-snapshot is set to false. this option flips the whole thing around and requires com.sun:auto-snapshot to be set to true instead. reversal arc, slay.
• -d, --debug — prints debugging messages. she's telling you everything, fr fr. 🐛
• -e, --event=EVENT — sets the com.sun:auto-snapshot-desc property to EVENT. label your moment bestie.
• --fast — uses a faster zfs list invocation. speed demon energy. ⚡
• -n, --dry-run — prints out the actions without actually doing anything. window shopping, no checkout. 🛍️
• -s, --skip-scrub — do not snapshot filesystems that live in scrubbing pools. let them scrub in peace bestie.
• -h, --help — prints the usage message. the "help me help you" option. 🙈
• -k, --keep=NUM — keep NUM recent snapshots and destroy the older ones. the rotation queen. 👑
• -l, --label=LAB — LAB is usually 'hourly', 'daily', or 'monthly'. pick your era.
• -p, --prefix=PRE — PRE is 'zfs-auto-snap' by default. change it if you want a different name for your babies.
• -q, --quiet — suppresses warnings and notices at the console. shhh. 🤫
• --send-full=F — send zfs full backup. Unimplemented. girl is not built yet, don't come for her. 💀
• --send-incr=F — send zfs incremental backup. Unimplemented. same situation. 😭
• --sep=CHAR — use CHAR to separate the date stamps in snapshot names. pick your separator, make it cute.
• -g, --syslog — writes messages into the system log. receipts, but in /var/log. 🧚
• -r, --recursive — snapshot the named filesystem and all descendants. the whole family tree, no one left behind. 🌈
• -v, --verbose — prints info messages. she's chatty and we love that.
• --pre-snapshot=COMMAND — a command to run before each dataset is snapshotted. it gets passed the dataset and snapshot name. and if it returns non-zero? snapshotting this dataset is aborted. like, dead stop. ⚠️
• --post-snapshot=COMMAND — a command to run after each dataset is snapshotted. it also gets passed the dataset and snapshot name. aftercare, we love to see it. 💜
• --destroy-only — do not create new snapshots, but do destroy older snapshots. also, heads up: this has no effect unless used with -k. bestie that's important.

a non-obvious use may be construction of cron jobs or scripts that run pre-snapshot command(s), then run zfs-auto-snapshot (without -k) to quickly snapshot all datasets, then run post-snapshot command(s) and clean up with zfs-auto-snapshot --destroy-only. 💅 iykyk.

• name — filesystem and volume names, or '//' for all ZFS datasets. the '//' is the "everybody" option. ✨

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• zfs(8)

and that's the whole page bestie!! this absolute icon lives in zfs-auto-snapshot.sh, dated June 16, 2013 — and yeah, ZFS-AUTO-SNAPSHOT(8) is her full government name. go forth and snapshot responsibly 🎀💖✨