How To Install snapper on Debian 10

Learn how to install snapper on Debian 10 with this tutorial. snapper is Linux filesystem snapshot management tool

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install snapper on Debian 10.

What is snapper

snapper is:

Snapper is a tool for Linux filesystem snapshot management. Apart from the obvious creation and deletion of snapshots, it can compare snapshots and revert differences between snapshots. In simple terms, this allows root and non-root users to view older versions of files and revert changes.

The features include:

  • Manually create snapshots
  • Automatically create snapshots, e.g. when using a package manager
  • Automatically create timeline of snapshots
  • Show and revert changes between snapshots
  • Works with btrfs and thin-provisioned LVM volumes
  • Supports Access Control Lists and Extended Attributes
  • Automatic cleanup of old snapshots
  • Command line interface
  • D-Bus interface
  • PAM module to create snapshots during login and logout (libpam-snapper)

There are three methods to install snapper on Debian 10. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install snapper Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install snapper using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install snapper

Install snapper Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install snapper using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install snapper

Install snapper Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Debian. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install snapper using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install snapper

How To Uninstall snapper on Debian 10

To uninstall only the snapper package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove snapper

Uninstall snapper And Its Dependencies

To uninstall snapper and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Debian 10, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove snapper

Remove snapper Configurations and Data

To remove snapper configuration and data from Debian 10 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge snapper

Remove snapper configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove snapper configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge snapper

Dependencies

snapper have the following dependencies:

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install snapper package on Debian 10 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.