Managing Snapshots

The snapshots menu allows a user to create and restore snapshots of a container database. A snapshot is a stored copy of a container at a given timestamp. Concretely, this means that the user can save a database, and quickly roll back to a previous snapshot at any time. This can be desirable when, for instance, developing templates where an incorrect template configuration can damage aspects of your dataset.

Create snapshot

When first opening the snapshots sub-menu in a new environment, this is the only option available to the user. Creating a snapshot creates a point-in-time reference to the data in the database in that moment, and is a differential back-up. This means that a snapshot only saves all changes made since the last snapshot, and does not save the entire state of all the data. This significantly reduces the amount of space needed to make a back-up, and means creating one is significantly faster.

If the environment contains one or more snapshots already, this button will be displayed in the top-right corner of the snapshot overview menu.

After creating an initial snapshot, all existing snapshots will be listed in the snapshot overview.

Snapshot Overview

In the snapshot overview, all existing snapshots are listed, along with information pertaining to the snapshot.

Created By

Lists the username of the creator of a snapshot. This username refers to the one assigned to a given user in the User management portion of Runtime.

Created

The timestamp of creation for a snapshot.

Restoring from a snapshot

The user can restore from a snapshot by clicking Restore on any given entry in the snapshot overview. This will lead to the loss of any unsaved data in the container, and roll-back the data in the container to represent the data as it was during the timestamp of the snapshot.

Due to how btrfs handles restoring snapshots, this process is (nearly) instantaneous.

Deleting a snapshot

A snapshot can be deleted by pressing delete on any given entry in the snapshot overview. This process is not reversible.