This guide is a step by step how to set up a fresh install of Fedora with BTRFS snapshotting through Timeshift. These snapshots are set up to be bootable from grub for easy disaster recovery and roll back. Remember - snapshots are not backup! Set up proper backups for your important data.

Install fedora⌗

Partition with Custom Blivet-gui

  • Delete all partitions on your drive

  • 1st partition EFI

    • Click on free space and click +
    • Size 600 MB
    • Filesystem : EFI System Partition
    • Label : EFI
    • Mount Point : /boot/efi

  • 2nd partition BOOT

    • Click on free space, click +
    • Size : 1024 MB
    • Filesystem : Ext4
    • Label : BOOT
    • Mount Point : /boot

  • For the rest of the disk we will make a BTRFS Volume.

    • Click on free space and click +
    • Filesystem : btrfs
    • and click ok.

(If you’d like /home on a separate drive, just select it in the installer and label it @home)

  • Now to make some btrfs sub-volumes.
  • Click on btrfs partition and click +
    • +log
      • Name: @log
      • Mount Point : /var/log
    • +home
      • Name: @home
      • Mount Point : /home
    • +/
      • Name: @
      • Mount Point: /

Continue the installation and reboot when complete.

Edit the fstab: sudo vim /etc/fstab⌗ 

# edit ALL btrfs-volumes - add: defaults,noatime,discard=async
# from: 
btrfs  subvol=@,compress=zstd:1    0   0
# to:
btrfs  subvol=@,compress=zstd:1,defaults,noatime,discard=async 0   0

Update the system + reboot after just to be sure. sudo dnf update -y

Install grub-btrfs: git clone https://github.com/Antynea/grub-btrfs⌗ 

cd grub-btrfs  
vim config

GRUB_BTRFS_SUBMENUNAME="Fedora Linux snapshots"
GRUB_BTRFS_SNAPSHOT_KERNEL_PARAMETERS="rd.live.overlay.overlayfs=1" # uncomment
GRUB_BTRFS_IGNORE_SPECIFIC_PATH=("@")  # already correct
GRUB_BTRFS_IGNORE_PREFIX_PATH=("var/lib/docker" "@var/lib/docker" "@/var/lib/docker") # already correct
GRUB_BTRFS_GRUB_DIRNAME="/boot/grub2" # uncomment
GRUB_BTRFS_BOOT_DIRNAME="/boot" # uncomment
GRUB_BTRFS_MKCONFIG=/usr/sbin/grub2-mkconfig # uncomment
GRUB_BTRFS_SCRIPT_CHECK=grub2-script-check # uncomment

Save the file, then in the same directory: sudo make install sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

  • Reboot again.

  • Install the tools: sudo dnf install inotify-tools timeshift to have the service running, monitoring for filesystem changes.

  • Launch timeshift GUI, step through the wizard:

    • pick BTRFS snapshot type
    • select location
    • select a schedule (can be changed later)
    • (I also include @home in my snapshots)

  • Take a snapshot!

Edit the systemd-service and make sure the ExecStart line looks like below:⌗

sudo systemctl edit --full grub-btrfsd

ExecStart=/usr/bin/grub-btrfsd --syslog --timeshift-auto

Save it, then start the service:

sudo systemctl enable --now grub-btrfsd 
systemctl status grub-btrfsd
  • Reboot and check grub for a new submenu (named above as “Fedora Linux snapshots”).
  • In the future, to roll back just select a previous snapshot from the boot menu and use timeshift to restore.