zfs_autobackup VS zfs-auto-snapshot

I recommend you to get familiar with https://github.com/psy0rz/zfs_autobackup/wiki first and then use the configuration you are happy with in my script.

I have a small home server running Ubuntu Server with a ZFS file system. To back up my files and use snapshots, I am currently using zfs-autobackup, which is easy to set up and works really well for ZFS. However, zfs-autobackup does not provide any information on files or folders that have been created, updated, or deleted from previous backups. While I am not too concerned about newly created or updated files, I would like to know which files have been deleted compared to the previous backup. Ideally, I would like to be able to see which files have been deleted before the backup takes place, so I can recover any unwanted deletions before it's too late.

as described here https://github.com/psy0rz/zfs_autobackup/issues/170

Use ZFS Autobackup https://github.com/psy0rz/zfs_autobackup or ZFS send and receive to create a clone of an existing pool on a new system https://www.thegeekdiary.com/zfs-tutorials-creating-zfs-snapshot-and-clones/

I just went back to sanoid. I have also looked at zfs-autobackup and might give that a try. I've been combining sanoid/syncoid with this script to clean up snapshots

If you want it to work really well in all circumstances, it WILL get complex. I tried to keep the code as readable as i could though. There where many refactors. Check it out: https://github.com/psy0rz/zfs_autobackup

Also have a look at https://github.com/psy0rz/zfs_autobackup .

From my research, I can see two options: - Proxmox specific cv4pve-autosnap - generic zfs-auto-snapshot, available in repos

Since Proxmox natively supports ZFS, you could that to make your snapshots. You can do automatic snapshots with zfs-auto-snapshot or for VMs with cv4pve-autosnap.

If you're using zfs-auto-snapshot (and it looks like you are), note that the timestamps are always in UTC, not your local timezone. Is your timezone somewhere around UTC-12:00?

$ edescribe zfs net-analyzer/munin-plugins-zfs::gentoo A Munin plugin for monitoring ZFS on Linux (https://github.com/alexclear/ZoL-munin-plugin) sec-keys/openpgp-keys-openzfs::gentoo OpenPGP keys used to sign OpenZFS releases (https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/) sec-policy/selinux-zfs::gentoo SELinux policy for zfs (https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/) sys-fs/zfs::gentoo Userland utilities for ZFS Linux kernel module (https://github.com/openzfs/zfs) sys-fs/zfs-auto-snapshot::gentoo ZFS Automatic Snapshot Service for Linux (https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs-auto-snapshot) sys-fs/zfs-kmod::gentoo Linux ZFS kernel module for sys-fs/zfs (https://github.com/openzfs/zfs) sys-boot/zfsbootmenu::guru ZFS bootloader for root-on-ZFS systems (https://zfsbootmenu.org)

You may want to skip trying to manage these manually and use something like this: https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs-auto-snapshot

Not every operation, but it's easily automated. https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs-auto-snapshot

zfs-auto-snapshot is as simple as it comes. It has cron jobs that show you how to take periodic snapshots. It cleans up its old versions.

Another option to look at (again, 3rd part stuff, not vanilla zfs hold/release stuff) is zfs-auto-snapshot which takes (and retains) n snapshots based on how you run it. See: https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs-auto-snapshot