System Snapshots in 24.7.3: How to Use?

[Sinister Pisces]

Hello! I just installed OPNSense 24.7.3 and added a new snapshot under System > Snapshots, using the [ + ] button. I'm not sure I did it right. It created a new 8K snapshot with no mountpoint.
That doesn't seem right given that the default snapshot is from December 2023.

Is there a guide to look at for this feature?

[cookiemonster]

I haven't tried but I upgraded today and has found my previously made by cli BEs.
On them I can see the options to edit (just the name), and to activate.
So it must be that now you have a snapshot, your current environment can be changed and if you want to revert it, just activate the previous one and reboot to make it the NR one.

[Sinister Pisces]

Thanks! That makes sense.

So, I think the recommended usage would be just like any other snapshot system: make a snapshot before installing a system update/plugins/anything that might corrupt the system?
Do I then have to make the newest snapshot to make it the active boot environment (that is, set it to "NR")?

I think I might have found a minor bug. In the GUI, the test snapshot I made reports as 8K, which didn't make a lot of sense to me, so I went and looked at it via SSH, where it reports as 880K.

That makes a bit more sense, as I really haven't changed that much in the past 9 months or so.

Code Select Expand

root@Uhura:~ # bectl list
BE                        Active Mountpoint Space Created
default                   NR     /          1.52G 2023-12-29 23:17
opnsense-24-7-3-installed -      -          880K  2024-08-30 16:40


[Sinister Pisces]

Sorry to double-reply, but I've gone and confused myself a bit.
So, I set up the crowdsec plugin with basic settings and did a snapshot. Now my list looks like the screen capture I've attached.

If I want to preserve my system as it is now on the next reboot, do I leave NR at "default," or activate the "crowdsec-basic" snapshot?

[newsense]

Search would have lead you to Patrick's awesome explainer here

https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=25540.msg122731#msg122731

[Sheridan Computers]

I've put a video together to explain how to use.

https://youtu.be/Z1OX0CKU__U

[Monviech (Cedrik)]

Additionally here is the docs article:

https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/snapshots.html

[valsimot]

New install - 5 days ago.

Created my first snapshot. Started at 8K... I came back to this topic about 30 minutes later and the file size has slowly increased (17MB) ... about 45 minutes later I'm sitting at 21.7M.

My default snapshot is 4.10G.

I'm curious to see how big the new snapshot gets.

[Patrick M. Hausen]

This might be helpful:

https://avidandrew.com/understanding-zfs-used-space.html