# Looking for system file snapshot utility recommendations **URL:** \ **Category:** Rocky Linux Help & Support\ **Tags:** rocky-linux-10\ **Created:** [February 18, 2026, 7:10pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215 "2026-02-18T19:10:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![anon49639581](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@anon49639581](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/anon49639581)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2026, 7:10pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/1 "2026-02-18T19:10:30Z")
I’m an avid user of Timeshift which I’ve concluded isn’t available for Rocky 10 and so I’m looking for it’s equivilent. I’m looking for a utility that: - is super user friendly - has a GUI - simple one click snapshot and restore just like Timeshift. - takes snapshots of the system files so I can roll back to previous version after bad updates or installs. - minimal configuration - easy to install - - What I don’t need is a program that backs up personal files. I backup all of my personal files manually. What utility do you feel replaces Timeshift nicely? ---
**Author:** ![gerry666uk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/dbc845/32.png) [@gerry666uk](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/gerry666uk)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2026, 7:23pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/2 "2026-02-18T19:23:44Z")
> [@anon49639581](#): > > simple one click backup and restore But is it really a backup, or is it just a snapshot (two different things) ---
**Author:** ![iwalker](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forums.rockylinux.org/iwalker/32/2599_2.png) [@iwalker](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/iwalker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2026, 7:06am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/3 "2026-02-19T07:06:57Z")
Should be relatively easy enough to build timeshift. There is a Fedora source rpm for this which can be used with mock to build it on Rocky. EDIT: never mind, doesn’t work: [Timeshift - Will it be available for Rocky 10? - #6 by iwalker](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/timeshift-will-it-be-available-for-rocky-10/20214/6) ---
**Author:** ![anon49639581](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@anon49639581](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/anon49639581)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2026, 5:24pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/4 "2026-02-19T17:24:03Z")
Yeah I’ve been trying to download but no luck. I found a program called LVM2. Linux Logical Volume Manager which let’s you take snapshots on xfs filesystems. Apparently there may be a way to get Timeshift to work with LVM2. Not sure yet. Still looking into it. ---
**Author:** ![jlehtone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9a140/32.png) [@jlehtone](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/jlehtone)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2026, 9:35am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/5 "2026-02-20T09:35:23Z")
> [@anon49639581](#): > > I found a program called LVM2. Linux Logical Volume Manager which let’s you take snapshots on xfs filesystems. I did wrote on that other thread that there are _certain conditions_ for that to be possible. * * * The “old way” to use a disk was to create a partition table – divide the physical sectors into continuous blocks (partitions) and initialize a filesystem into each partition. That had limitations. With LVM, a partition is made into a _physical volume_ (PV). PV has “extents”. Extent is block of sectors. A _volume group_ (VG) has one or more PV. A _logical volume_ (LV) uses some extents, which do not have to be consecutive nor all in same PV. The filesystem is initialized into LV. LVM can create a snapshot of LV, if the VG has enough _free_ extents for the data. * * * For many major versions of RHEL, it has been the default to install with LVM. That is, create 2 or 3 partitions on install. One has the `/boot` filesystem. No LVM – cannot be in LV. Another exists only on UEFI systems and has the EFI System Partition (ESP). No LVM – cannot be in LV. The last partition has PV. Within that PV are 3 LV: - Filesystem for `/` – the OS files - Filesystem for `/home`– the user files - Swap partition However, _all_ extents of the PV are allocated to those – there is no free space for snapshots. It is not possible to shrink existing XFS filesystem. The default install does use XFS for all filesystems. * * * You have either used the defaults on Rocky install, or not. If you did use, then still have to free up extents, for example by complete removal of the LV that has `/home`, creation of smaller LV and `/home` into it (and restore of user files). Waste of time, if the program that you want cannot even install. ---
**Author:** ![anon49639581](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@anon49639581](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/anon49639581)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2026, 4:47pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/6 "2026-02-20T16:47:58Z")
Yeah I’ve given up on finding a Timeshift replacement. I think I’m going to be looking into creating a bootable recovery drive to take snapshots instead. ---
**Author:** ![jlehtone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9a140/32.png) [@jlehtone](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/jlehtone)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2026, 9:25pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/7 "2026-02-20T21:25:23Z")
I do use “plan B”: I have the normal install media. I can do minimal install “from scratch” with it. (I may have kickstart file to repeat some choices made on earlier installs.) The real twist is that I have Ansible playbooks that I can run after the install. They install the rest of packages and drop in system config. That “restores” the system. The playbooks are simple files to backup. ---
**Author:** ![anon49639581](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@anon49639581](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/anon49639581)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 6:39pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/8 "2026-02-21T18:39:06Z")
I’ll look into Plan B. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![fredex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/cab0a1/32.png) [@fredex](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/fredex)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2026, 8:22pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/9 "2026-02-23T20:22:53Z")
I suspect that what I am about to suggest is not what you’re looking for, but… I have been using rsnapshot for backups for a decade or more (from my various Linux systems) and find it to be a wonderful tool. (rsnapshot is a Perl front-end to rsync). Ffirst time you run rsnapshot it does a full backup of whatever you configure it (/etc/rsnapshot.conf) to back up. each subsequent time it backs up whatever has changed since the previous run. for example, if you configure it to do 7 daily (once a day for seven days) backups, you will have “daily.0, daily.1, …, daily.6. Daily.0 is always the most recent one and contains all the files and directories on the system (i.e., that are within the set of items you configure it to back up). the previous 6 contain hard links to files in daily.0, IF they existed on the date rsnapshot was run. if they did not exist then, they won’t exist in that particular snapshot. likewise it will contain files that DID exist then but have been deleted/renamed since then such that they no longer exist in daily.0. (I hope that makes some sense,…) You never have to do a “full” backup again as long as these files exist on whatever volume you store them on. Since I only backup one system (my Linux desktop) I store them on a USB-attached RAID-1 box, which gives me an additional layer of safety should one of its drives die. If you back up multiple systems, you would have a separate system where rsnapshot runs, and it uses rsync/ssh to transfer from the systems being backed up to the backup storage device. (I have never configured it that way since I only back up (parts of) my personal system. Good luck! Fred ---
**Author:** ![anon49639581](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@anon49639581](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/anon49639581)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2026, 9:34pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/10 "2026-02-23T21:34:01Z")
Yeah sounds like it functions in the same way the Timeshift does. I’ll keep this in mind and will look into it. Thanks for the recommendation. Does rsnapshot work on xfs filesystems? ---
**Author:** ![fredex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/cab0a1/32.png) [@fredex](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/fredex)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2026, 10:51pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/11 "2026-02-23T22:51:15Z")
I believe it is filesystem-agnostic. it just reads files and writes files. as long as you can do hard links, chown/chmod and such-like you’re golden. ---
**Author:** ![jlehtone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9a140/32.png) [@jlehtone](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/jlehtone)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2026, 9:48am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/12 "2026-02-24T09:48:07Z")
> [@fredex](#): > > “front-end to rsync” … and `rsync` copies files. I have datasets, where copy can take hours even when there is next to no changes since previous copy. The BTRFS, ZFS, LVM, `dd`, etc “snapshots” operate on lower level, on data blocks rather than files. ---
**Author:** ![iwalker](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forums.rockylinux.org/iwalker/32/2599_2.png) [@iwalker](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/iwalker)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2026, 9:51am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/13 "2026-02-24T09:51:36Z")
Restic is a very good option, be it backup to local storage, or even use with S3. Even has de-duplication which means you save a ton of space. @jlehtone mentions BTRFS and ZFS, which also have de-duplication capabilities. Something that backups to a file system like rsnapshot/rsync don’t have (as far as I am aware - unless they are being done to a filesystem that has de-duplication enabled like BTRFS). ---
**Author:** ![anon49639581](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@anon49639581](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/anon49639581)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 7:22pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/14 "2026-02-27T19:22:46Z")
[UNSOLVED] Hopping to a different distro as a workaround for all the issues I’m having. ---
**Author:** ![FrankCox](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forums.rockylinux.org/frankcox/32/1572_2.png) [@FrankCox](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/FrankCox)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2026, 8:14pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/15 "2026-02-27T20:14:40Z")
Did you try any of the other options that were suggested to you here? What features were missing that you need? ---
**Author:** ![anon49639581](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@anon49639581](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/anon49639581)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2026, 5:16pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/16 "2026-03-14T17:16:09Z")
I honestly don’t remember however I found a distro that isn’t casuing me issues in these areas and have attended to all of my pain points so I’m pretty happy right now. ps. I just hopped on this forum to tie up loose messages. I won’t be returning. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/rockylinux/original/1X/91b7219eec10e30013422e4df76c1d898711a5d5.svg) [@system](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/system)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2026, 5:17pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/looking-for-system-file-snapshot-utility-recommendations/20215/17 "2026-05-13T17:17:07Z")
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