Snapper snapshots in the top bar - take, browse, compare, restore, roll back.
snapper already takes snapshots on most btrfs installations - one an hour, one either side of every package transaction - and reading them back means the command line or a separate application. This puts them in the top bar.
Tip
Simple, minimal and good-looking, and still the whole of snapper. A menu and a settings window quiet enough to forget about; behind them, comparing, restoring single files, rolling the machine back, setting a config up, and the timers that keep it all going.
The name is the faint light that hangs over a bog at night. A snapshot is the same sort of thing: the shape the system had, still there after the moment it belonged to.
A snapshot's own window, and the timers snapper acts on:
What changed since a snapshot, with the files to put back picked out of it:
What snapper is set to keep, and what is left on the filesystem it keeps it on:
snapper and one config |
Required. Not installed by default on most distributions, and there is nothing to list until a config exists |
polkit |
The optional lock in front of the menu, and switching snapper's timers |
util-linux, btrfs-progs |
The Storage page |
btrfsmaintenance |
Balance, scrub, defrag and trim on the Schedule page. snapper does not need it |
wisp-helper |
Whatever needs root: access to a config, its settings, a new config or the removal of one, restoring files, rolling back, and btrfsmaintenance's schedule |
GNOME Shell 46 or newer, Wayland or X11. polkit and util-linux are on practically every desktop install already; snapper usually is not.
sudo dnf install snapper # Fedora, RHEL, CentOS
sudo apt install snapper # Debian, Ubuntu
sudo pacman -S snapper # Arch
sudo zypper install snapper # openSUSE, where it is there from the startThen one config for whatever should be snapshotted. With wisp-helper that is a button on the Snapshots page; without it:
sudo snapper -c root create-config /None of that has to be remembered. When snapper is missing the panel icon turns red, the menu says so and hands over the install command for the distribution it is running on, the settings window sets up a config through wisp-helper or builds the command that does it, and the timers are switches on the Schedule page.
- Each config's snapshots, newest first, with the pair around a package transaction shown as the one event it was
- Take one with a description that no cleanup rule will remove; delete one after a confirmation that says what goes; open one in Files and read it as it was
- Rename it, mark it important, change its cleanup rule, and turn read-only off
- Everything that has changed since a snapshot, searchable, and for a package transaction exactly what the transaction changed
- Put chosen files back, or roll the root filesystem back, through wisp-helper or by handing over the command to run as root - with a word first on what the rollback will do, or why this system cannot have one
- Timeline limits per config, a new config or the removal of one, snapper's timers, btrfsmaintenance's jobs, and what btrfs has handed out to chunks
- Reads a config without asking for a password once the account is added to it, with a row for that in the menu; an optional polkit lock in front of the menu if you want one
- Live, whoever changed the snapshots; whatever is missing gets named with the line that installs it; follows the light and dark theme
Open the page and flip the switch, or install it from the Extension Manager app.
Every tag builds the same zip that goes to extensions.gnome.org:
gnome-extensions install --force wisp.zip
gnome-extensions enable wisp@epogonii.github.iotools/install-local.sh installs into the running session and tools/pack.sh
builds the same zip.
GNOME Shell 46 or newer. Log out and back in first (X11: Alt+F2, then r): a
running shell keeps an extension's JavaScript in memory for the life of the
process. Preferences apply immediately.
snapperd does not use polkit. Each config carries its own ALLOW_USERS and
ALLOW_GROUPS in /etc/snapper/configs/<name>, both empty until somebody fills
them in, so a fresh install tells an ordinary account nothing at all.
Wisp runs nothing as root. What needs root goes through wisp-helper, a small system service that asks polkit for the password first. Without the helper Wisp shows the command instead, to run as root in a terminal, and the menu links to the helper's install page. For a config the account is not on, the menu adds it through the helper, or shows the command that adds it, to run once as root:
sudo snapper -c <config> set-config ALLOW_USERS=<you> SYNC_ACL=yesSYNC_ACL is what puts an ACL on the snapshot directory, without which the
snapshots are listed but their files cannot be opened. snapperd reports the
change and the menu fills in on its own.
Everything after that goes straight to snapperd over D-Bus as the user.
Restoring files, rolling back, the settings in /etc/snapper/configs and
btrfsmaintenance's file are root's either way, and go through wisp-helper;
without it Wisp shows the command and copies it for you to run. The systemd
timers are switched through systemd's own D-Bus API, which asks polkit itself.
snapper rollback points btrfs at a different default subvolume, so it takes
effect at the next boot - and does nothing at all if /etc/fstab names the
subvolume it mounts at /. Where that is the case Wisp says so instead of
letting the reboot say it. It also needs the default subvolume to be one of
snapper's snapshots already, which it is not on a layout like Fedora's; snapper
refuses there, and Wisp says so rather than hand over the command.
wisp-helper gets further. On openSUSE it runs the same snapper rollback. On a
layout like Fedora's, where /etc/fstab names the subvolume mounted at /, a
writable copy of the snapshot takes its place instead, and the system as it was
is kept as a snapshot of its own. Wisp says which it will be before anything is
done, and where neither works, why.
gnome-extensions prefs wisp@epogonii.github.io| Page | What is on it |
|---|---|
| Appearance | Where the indicator sits and whether it is shown, what a middle click does, how many snapshots each config lists, ages or dates, whether a finished action answers with a pill under the panel or a notification, and the lock: never, after a while, or every time |
| Snapshots | One row per config with the subvolume it snapshots, whether it shows in the menu, whether this account may read it, and the timeline and numbered limits snapper cleans up by |
| Schedule | snapper's three timers, and how often btrfsmaintenance balances, scrubs, defragments and trims |
| Storage | What the filesystem is doing: size, what btrfs has handed out to chunks, what is written, what is free, and the same per chunk type |
| About | The version, the project page, and the links below |
Every string is translatable, and none is translated yet. po/wisp.pot holds
them, and tools/update-po.sh rebuilds it from the sources - tools/files.txt
is the list it reads, so a new file is translatable as soon as it ships - and
brings each po/*.po up to date.
A language starts as a copy of the pot:
msginit --locale=<code> --input=po/wisp.pot --output=po/<code>.poFill it in, run tools/update-po.sh to check it compiles, and
tools/install-local.sh puts it where the shell looks.
- Extension version, GNOME Shell version, distribution
snapper --version, and whethersystemctl status snapperd.serviceanswersjournalctl --user -b 0 -o cat /usr/bin/gnome-shell | grep -i wisp- A screenshot where it makes sense
The extension is free and stays free. If it earned a coffee:
| GitHub Sponsors | github.com/sponsors/epogonii, monthly or one time |
| PayPal | paypal.me/pogonii |
| Bitcoin | bc1qe6fjj3uv23e2yx2ry3wwhyrl7s2pqshau7mga3 |
| Ethereum | 0xDC9e1EfA0F8FAE71377F4018d4ff7D123369438e |
| Solana | 3sYQyR27CVz1VcwCfoDLUioaAHk8jspQaSDHXEvBALxg |
The same links sit on the About page of the extension's preferences.
GPL-2.0-or-later, see LICENSE.