Getting Started¶

KARTOZA · ZFS BACKUP

The shortest path from "I have a fresh USB drive" to "I have an encrypted, incremental, multi-host backup pool that I trust."

The five-minute tour¶

1. Install the binary. Either drop the release binary into /usr/local/bin/zfs-backup or run straight from the flake with nix run github:timlinux/zfs-backup. See Installation.
2. Plug in a fresh USB drive and run sudo zfs-backup. Choose Prepare Backup Device from the menu and follow the prompts — the tool will create an encrypted NIXBACKUPS pool with AES-256-GCM.
3. Run a backup. Choose Backup ZFS. The tool snapshots the source pool, sends only the changes, prunes old snapshots to bookmarks, exports the pool and powers off the drive when it's done.
4. Watch it work. The per-snapshot dot matrix lights up as each snapshot lands on the destination. You see real progress, not a spinner.
5. Read the report. A markdown + PDF report lands in ~/.local/share/zfs-backup/reports/ after every run with every timing, every size, and the full pool inventory.

Next stops¶