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I wonder if zrepl could be run in WSL2 - would be nice to backup Windows computers as well using this approach. At the moment, I use Nextcloud to sync data to

I wonder if zrepl could be run in WSL2 - would be nice to backup Windows computers as well using this approach. At the moment, I use Nextcloud to sync data to my server. It is a more selective approach and Nextcloud is, per se, not a backup solution because not all files can be backed up.. and live-sync is always a half-baked backup solution.

vladvasiliu 3y ago
How would that work? Zrepl ships ZFS snapshots. You could probably wrangle wsl2 to install its distro on zfs. If so, I see no reason why zrepl wouldn't work with the linux environment. But snapshotting the whole Windows drive? I don't think so. If you want similar features, I think ReFS comes close. AFAICT it's not supported as a boot drive.
- Helmut10001 3y ago
  I thought maybe if Windows is installed on a ZFS volume, and WSL2 on another, Zrep from Linux should be able to backup both, snapshots from the Linux and the Windows volume. But a quick search on Google reveals that Windows on ZFS is not a thing, yet.
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    You could flip that on its head, and run Windows in a VM on Linux on a ZFS volume. Depending on what you do on Windows and your particular hardware setup, this may or may not work well enough. I see people use GPU pass-through to play games on Windows VMs. You could probably pass through practically all devices (GPU, sound, network, keyboard, etc.) and this could work well-enough if you don't need the absolute last drop of performance from your CPU and drives. And since KVM supports nested virtualization, you could run WSL2 in the Windows VM. And if I'm not mistaken, the KVM agent in windows can be told to ask the guest OS to sync the drives, and some Windows applications [0] can even cooperate with this and flush their buffers to disk. You could signal this before creating the ZFS snapshot. [0] probably not most, but I think MSSQL does.
    - Helmut10001 3y ago
      Yes, this could be a possible direction. However, judging by reports from Reddit [1], Windows on ZFS still produces lots of BSOD. Maybe one needs a ZFS Volume formatted as NTFS? Anyway, these days, I work 60% of time on my VMs, and the other 40% in WSL. Windows is reduced to a graphical interface, maybe I should simply ditch this last mile, too. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/zfs/comments/yxipyy/anyone_using_openzfs_on_windows_on_a_daily_basis/ https://www.reddit.com/r/zfs/comments/yxipyy/anyone_using_op...

vladvasiliu 3y ago

How would that work? Zrepl ships ZFS snapshots. You could probably wrangle wsl2 to install its distro on zfs. If so, I see no reason why zrepl wouldn't work with the linux environment. But snapshotting the whole Windows drive? I don't think so. If you want similar features, I think ReFS comes close. AFAICT it's not supported as a boot drive.

Helmut10001 3y ago
I thought maybe if Windows is installed on a ZFS volume, and WSL2 on another, Zrep from Linux should be able to backup both, snapshots from the Linux and the Windows volume. But a quick search on Google reveals that Windows on ZFS is not a thing, yet.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  You could flip that on its head, and run Windows in a VM on Linux on a ZFS volume. Depending on what you do on Windows and your particular hardware setup, this may or may not work well enough. I see people use GPU pass-through to play games on Windows VMs. You could probably pass through practically all devices (GPU, sound, network, keyboard, etc.) and this could work well-enough if you don't need the absolute last drop of performance from your CPU and drives. And since KVM supports nested virtualization, you could run WSL2 in the Windows VM. And if I'm not mistaken, the KVM agent in windows can be told to ask the guest OS to sync the drives, and some Windows applications [0] can even cooperate with this and flush their buffers to disk. You could signal this before creating the ZFS snapshot. [0] probably not most, but I think MSSQL does.
  - Helmut10001 3y ago
    Yes, this could be a possible direction. However, judging by reports from Reddit [1], Windows on ZFS still produces lots of BSOD. Maybe one needs a ZFS Volume formatted as NTFS? Anyway, these days, I work 60% of time on my VMs, and the other 40% in WSL. Windows is reduced to a graphical interface, maybe I should simply ditch this last mile, too. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/zfs/comments/yxipyy/anyone_using_openzfs_on_windows_on_a_daily_basis/ https://www.reddit.com/r/zfs/comments/yxipyy/anyone_using_op...