____     ____    ___      __     _____   _____      __   _ __ 
 /\_ ,`\  /',__\ /' _ `\  /'__`\  /\ '__`\/\ '__`\  /'__`\/\`'__\
 \/_/  /_/\__, `\/\ \/\ \/\ \L\.\_\ \ \L\ \ \ \L\ \/\  __/\ \ \/
   /\____\/\____/\ \_\ \_\ \__/.\_\\ \ ,__/\ \ ,__/\ \____\\ \_\
   \/____/\/___/  \/_/\/_/\/__/\/_/ \ \ \/  \ \ \/  \/____/ \/_/
                                     \ \_\   \ \_\
                                      \/_/    \/_/

This is a ZFS snapshotting service for Solaris, OpenIndiana, SmartOS and friends.

Installation

# npm -g install zsnapper

Configure

Copy the config file zsnapper.json.sample (probably installed in /usr/local/lib/node_modules/zsnapper by npm) to /etc/zsnapper.json and update it with your desired configuration.

It's a JSON file of the format:

{
    <dataset name>: {
        <snapshot name>: {
            "when": <cron string>,
            "count": <number of snapshots>,
            "exclude": [ <dataset to be excluded>, ... ]
        },
        <snapshot name>: {
            "when": <cron string>,
            "count": <number of snapshots>,
            "exclude": [ <dataset to be excluded>, ... ]
        }
    },
    <dataset name>: {
        ...
    }
}

Where:

• dataset name is a name of a dataset to snapshot. Example: zones.

• snapshot name is a base to build snapshot names of. The current date and time will be appended. Example: daily which will result in snapshot names of the type daily-20120515T1314900Z.

• cron string is a cron-format description of when the snapshot should be taken. man 5 crontab for details. Example: 15 0 * * 1 for snapshots at 00:15 the first of every month.

• number of snapshots is the number of snapshots that should be kept historically before being destroyed.

• exclude is a list of dataset names (under the main dataset name) that should not be snapshotted. Example: [ "zones/swap", "zones/dump" ].

Start

To test the setup, start the service (as root) with the name of the config file as the only parameter.

# /usr/local/bin/zsnapper /etc/zsnapper.json

A better alternative, once everything seems to work as intended, is to use the accompanying SMF manifest. Copy zsnapper.xml from /usr/local/lib/node_modules/zsnapper to your home directory and edit it to suit your installation. The only things you need to modify are the paths to the zsnapper executable and the zsnapper.json config file. Then import it:

# svccfg import zsnapper.xml

The service should be started automatically, which you can verify:

# svcs site/zsnapper
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online         10:56:26 svc:/site/zsnapper:default