Tip Top Tips: Automatically Backup Your System When You Update

Editor’s Note: Tip Top Tips is a semi-monthly column in The PCLinuxOS Magazine. Periodically, we will feature – and possibly even expand upon – one tip from the PCLinuxOS forum. The magazine will not accept independent tip submissions specifically intended for inclusion in the Tip Top Tips column. Rather, if you have a tip, share it in the PCLinuxOS forum’s “Tips & Tricks” section. Occasionally, we may run a “tip” posted elsewhere in the PCLinuxOS forum. Either way, share your tip in the forum, and it just may be selected for publication in The PCLinuxOS Magazine.

This month’s tip comes from hunter0one.

We all are (or should be) using Timeshift, which typically makes snapshots automatically at different times. However, this doesn't pay attention to when you run transactions (upgrading, removing, or installing software) on your system which is where most problems arise. Thankfully, DNF supports plugins, and one of those plugins will make Timeshift snapshots automatically when you are doing transactions with it.

To use this plugin, simply install timeshift-autosnap-dnf5 (available in the PCLinuxOS repository) and each time afterwards when you install, remove, or upgrade software with DNF graphically or from the command line it will automatically back up your /boot directory and create a Timeshift snapshot. The command will appear in the comment of the snapshot in the Timeshift GUI, so you will know which one it is. The /boot backup will be saved as /boot.backup.

By default, it will save up to three snapshots at a time, but you can change this or other options by editing the file /etc/timeshift-autosnap-dnf5.conf.