Recursive rollback? Am I asking the right question?

[winnielinnie]

I've used the rollback feature to go back to a point in time for a specific dataset. No problems there.

If I create a recursive snapshot of an entire pool (all child datasets included), it creates a snapshot for each child dataset within the entire pool.

So far, so good.

Yet if I rollback the top level snapshot (of the pool itself), it does not rollback all the other snapshots of the same name for the child datasets.

Here is an example:

----------

mainpool
mainpool/linuxdistros
mainpool/archives
mainpool/downloads
mainpool/downloads/small
mainpool/downloads/large

I create a recursive snapshot for mainpool named @manual-20191108.

Now I have the following snapshots:

mainpool@manual-20191108
mainpool/linuxdistros@manual-20191108
mainpool/archives@manual-20191108
mainpool/downloads@manual-20191108
mainpool/downloads/small@manual-20191108
mainpool/downloads/large@manual-20191108

If I select mainpool@manual-20191108, and rollback to this snapshot, none of the child datasets are rolled back to the same snapshot.

I searched online in these forums and on the Oracle documentations, but could not find a clear answer. How would I do a "recursive rollback", if that even makes sense? It is possible through the FreeNAS web GUI? Through a single command?

 

[garm]

Rollback is an extreme action and as far as I’m aware can only be done per dataset. Your workflow should consider a rollback to be a catastrophic last resort (think ransomware or rebuild of a lost pool). In daily use it’s way safer to mount snapshots and restore specific data, also a per dataset action.

 

[fracai]

A search for "zfs recursive rollback" will turn up several different scripts that will help with recursive rollbacks. Ultimately I think it's probably a good thing that this isn't a native feature. There are just too many places where this could lead to unintended destruction with the way dependent datasets could be destroyed as well.

As for "daily use", I find it way easier and just as safe to restore files from the ".zfs/snapshot/<snapshot_name>" directories.

A rollback did recently save me from an incompatibility introduced by a package upgrade in a jail.

 

[garm]

A rollback did recently save me from an incompatibility introduced by a package upgrade in a jail.

Or this, I do this fairly regularly as well. I consider this catastrophic server failure.