How to interpret Snapper’s TIMELINE_LIMIT settings

English Install/Boot/Login
1

The (btrfs) root partition of my Tumbleweed machine seems to be rapidly running out of disk space because of Snapper snapshots. I’m trying to find out how to automatically weed out older snapshots, but I cannot find information on how to interpret the different TIMELINE_LIMIT variables in /etc/snapper/configs/root file:

# limits for timeline cleanup
TIMELINE_MIN_AGE="1800"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_HOURLY="10"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_DAILY="10"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_WEEKLY="0"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_MONTHLY="10"
TIMELINE_LIMIT_YEARLY="10"

What’s the unit in TIMELINE_MIN_AGE? What do the numbers in the other variables mean? Is it like “retain the last 10 hourly snapshots” etc?

2

Values used on this system:

**[FONT=monospace]**i3-4130:~ #****grep CREATE /etc/snapper/configs/root**
TIMELINE_**CREATE**=**"no"**
i3-4130:~ #** grep LIMIT /etc/snapper/configs/root  
SPACE_**LIMIT**="0.5" 
FREE_**LIMIT**="0.2" 
NUMBER_**LIMIT**="2-10" 
NUMBER_**LIMIT**_IMPORTANT="4-10" 
TIMELINE_**LIMIT**_HOURLY="10" 
TIMELINE_**LIMIT**_DAILY="10" 
TIMELINE_**LIMIT**_WEEKLY="0" 
TIMELINE_**LIMIT**_MONTHLY="10" 
TIMELINE_**LIMIT**_YEARLY="10" 
**i3-4130:~ #**
[/FONT]

Snapper lists only number cleanup, timeline does not apply here:

**i3-4130:~ #** snapper list 
   # | Type   | Pre # | Date                     | User | Cleanup | Description          | Userdata      
-----+--------+-------+--------------------------+------+---------+----------------------+-------------- 
  0  | single |       |                          | root |         | current              |               
 22* | single |       | Mon Jul 20 11:33:33 2020 | root |         | writable copy of #18 |               
444  | pre    |       | Wed Jul 28 05:54:07 2021 | root | number  | zypp(zypper)         | important=yes 
445  | post   |   444 | Wed Jul 28 05:55:42 2021 | root | number  |                      | important=yes 
448  | pre    |       | Wed Jul 28 05:59:18 2021 | root | number  | zypp(zypper)         | important=yes 
449  | post   |   448 | Wed Jul 28 05:59:30 2021 | root | number  |                      | important=yes 
462  | pre    |       | Fri Jul 30 08:03:18 2021 | root | number  | zypp(zypper)         | important=yes 
463  | post   |   462 | Fri Jul 30 08:07:25 2021 | root | number  |                      | important=yes 
478  | pre    |       | Wed Aug  4 07:33:19 2021 | root | number  | zypp(zypper)         | important=yes 
479  | post   |   478 | Wed Aug  4 07:37:25 2021 | root | number  |                      | important=yes 
482  | pre    |       | Wed Aug  4 09:49:27 2021 | root | number  | zypp(zypper)         | important=yes 
483  | post   |   482 | Wed Aug  4 09:49:37 2021 | root | number  |                      | important=yes 
490  | pre    |       | Thu Aug  5 05:11:05 2021 | root | number  | yast bootloader      |               
491  | post   |   490 | Thu Aug  5 05:11:38 2021 | root | number  |                      |               
**i3-4130:~ #**
3

Yeah, but I have set TIMELINE_CREATE=“yes” on system and am trying to clean up those snapshots in particular.

4
5

Thanks, arvidjaar! That’s was exactly what I was after.