I am new to btrfs
, and confused about subvolumes, after reading the documentation and experimenting on a local system. I have a Linux Mint system with a btrfs
root partition. Mint conveniently includes a tool that helps automate regular snapshots. I can easily list the ones it has made and kept.
$ sudo btrfs subvolume list /
ID 257 gen 52540 top level 5 path @
ID 258 gen 52540 top level 5 path @home
ID 283 gen 52467 top level 5 path timeshift-btrfs/snapshots/2019-01-15_02-00-51/@
ID 286 gen 50026 top level 5 path timeshift-btrfs/snapshots/2019-01-16_02-00-01/@
ID 288 gen 50026 top level 5 path timeshift-btrfs/snapshots/2019-01-17_02-00-01/@
ID 289 gen 50026 top level 5 path timeshift-btrfs/snapshots/2019-01-18_02-00-01/@
ID 291 gen 50409 top level 5 path timeshift-btrfs/snapshots/2019-01-19_02-00-01/@
Based on the documentation, however, I understand that snapshots can be browsed, their full tree exposed just as the main file tree, appearing as directories to the application. I could, for example, copy a single file from the snapshot to the mounted top-level volume. That is, from an application perspective, making a snapshot is much like an atomic, recursive copy.
However, I am able to find none of the seven subvolumes listed above in the contents either of /
or /home
, and no entry called timeshift-btrfs
appears in the listing of /home
.
What am I misunderstanding? Is there any directory listing that shows the tree of the snapshots?