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UNTITLED()			      LOCAL			      UNTITLED()

NAME
     periodic-snapshot -- run periodic UFS/ZFS backup snapshot maintenance task

SYNOPSIS
     periodic-snapshot

DESCRIPTION
     The periodic-snapshot utility is intended to be called by cron(8) to create
     and expire UFS/ZFS backup snapshots through the snapshot(8) command accord-
     ing  to  the  snapshot_enable  and  snapshot_schedule  settings  from peri-
     odic.conf(5).

     The system /etc/crontab will typically have entries  for  periodic-snapshot
     similar to the following example:

	   # do hourly/daily/weekly maintenance of FreeBSD UFS/ZFS snapshots
	   0  *  *  *  *  root	periodic-snapshot hourly
	   0  0  *  *  *  root	periodic-snapshot daily
	   0  0  *  *  0  root	periodic-snapshot weekly

     The  /etc/defaults/periodic.conf system registry will typically contain the
     following defaults which keep periodic-snapshot disabled by default:

	   snapshot_enable="NO"
	   snapshot_schedule=""

     The snapshot_schedule variable values have  to  conform  to  the  following
     grammar:

	   <schedule>	 ::= <entry>*
	   <entry>	 ::= <fs> ("," <fs>)* ":" <spec>
	   <fs> 	 ::= /^.*$/
	   <spec>	 ::= <gen_weekly> ":" <gen_daily> ":" <gen_hourly>
	   <gen_weekly>  ::= <generation>
	   <gen_daily>	 ::= <generation>
	   <gen_hourly>  ::= <generation> ("@" <hour> ("," <hour>)*)?
	   <generation>  ::= /^[0-9]+$/
	   <hour>	 ::= /^(0?[0-9]|1[0-9]|2[0-3])$/

     The  number  of  all  added  "generation" numbers of a filesystem cannot be
     larger than 20 because this is the maximum number of snapshots which can be
     created on a UFS/ZFS filesystem. A "generation" number of "0" disables  the
     creation of backup snapshots.

     The  used	schedule  heavily  depends  on how much generations of snapshots
     should be kept, which in turn depends on how much disk space is available.

FILES
     /etc/crontab		  the  periodic-snapshot  utility  is  typically
				  called  via  entries	in  the  system  default
				  cron(8) table.

     /etc/defaults/periodic.conf  system registry containing variables that con-
				  trol the behaviour of periodic-snapshot.

     /etc/periodic.conf 	  this file contains local overrides for the de-
				  fault periodic-snapshot configuration.

EXAMPLES
     In order to configure  UFS/ZFS  backup  snapshot  creation,  add  lines  to
     /etc/periodic.conf similar to:

	   snapshot_enable="YES"
	   snapshot_schedule="/,/usr:2:1:0 /var:0:2:4 /home:2:6:8@8,12,16,20"

     This   schedules	the   following   UFS/ZFS  backup  snapshots:  2  weekly
     (weekly.[01]) and 1 daily (daily.0) generation of snapshots on  the  /  and
     /usr  filesystems, two daily (daily.[01]) and 4 hourly (hourly.[0123]) gen-
     erations of snapshots on the /var filesystem, and 2 weekly (weekly.[01]), 6
     daily (daily.[0123456]) and 8  hourly  (hourly.[01234567])  generations  of
     snapshots	on the /home filesystem.  While the hourly snapshots on /var are
     created every hour, the hourly snapshots on /home	are  created  on  08:00,
     12:00, 16:00 and 20:00 only.

SEE ALSO
     sh(1),  crontab(5),  periodic.conf(5),  cron(8),  snapshot(8),  http://peo-
     ple.freebsd.org/~rse/snapshot/.

HISTORY
     The periodic-snapshot utility first appeared in FreeBSD.

AUTHORS
     Ralf S. Engelschall <rse@FreeBSD.org>

FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly     September 03, 2004	    PERIODIC-SNAPSHOT(8)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=periodic-snapshot&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

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