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 > > >
