HackerReposA FIELD GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE
ProSponsor the shelf♧ 0
← Back to top all-time
kimono-koans
httm
Rust2022–2024
kimono-koans / httm

httm

Interactive, file-level Time Machine-like tool for ZFS/btrfs/nilfs2 (and even Time Machine and Restic backups!)

Command LineSystems & InfrastructureSelf-hosted
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
7Distinct people
29Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
1.7KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Interactive, file-level Time Machine-like tool for ZFS/btrfs/nilfs2 (and even Time Machine and Restic backups!)

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

From the help and man page[0]: --roll-forward="snap_name" traditionally 'zfs rollback' is a destructive operation, whereas httm roll-forward is non-destructive. httm will copy…

mustache_kimono used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 10:49:33 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by month29 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2022-03-08 03:57:35 UTC to 2024-07-23 11:53:14 UTC.

012342022-03-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-04-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 commentsMar 20222022-04-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-05-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 2 submissions, 1 comments2022-05-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2022-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-07-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2022-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2022-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2022-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2022-10-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-11-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2022-11-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-12-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2022-12-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-02-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-02-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-03-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-03-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-04-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-04-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-05-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2023-05-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 commentsMay 20232023-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-07-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2023-08-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-09-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2023-09-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-10-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2023-10-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-11-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-11-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-12-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2023-12-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-02-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-02-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-03-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-03-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-04-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-04-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-05-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2024-05-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-06-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-06-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-07-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-07-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-08-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 commentsJul 2024

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
Mar 20222022-03-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-04-01 00:00:00 UTC312
Apr 20222022-04-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-05-01 00:00:00 UTC321
May 20222022-05-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-06-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Jun 20222022-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-07-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 20222022-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-08-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Aug 20222022-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-09-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Sep 20222022-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-10-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Oct 20222022-10-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-11-01 00:00:00 UTC404
Nov 20222022-11-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-12-01 00:00:00 UTC202
Dec 20222022-12-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-02-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 20232023-02-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-03-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 20232023-03-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-04-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 20232023-04-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-05-01 00:00:00 UTC101
May 20232023-05-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-06-01 00:00:00 UTC202
Jun 20232023-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-07-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 20232023-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-08-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Aug 20232023-08-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-09-01 00:00:00 UTC202
Sep 20232023-09-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-10-01 00:00:00 UTC202
Oct 20232023-10-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-11-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Nov 20232023-11-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-12-01 00:00:00 UTC101
Dec 20232023-12-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jan 20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-02-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Feb 20242024-02-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-03-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Mar 20242024-03-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-04-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Apr 20242024-04-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-05-01 00:00:00 UTC101
May 20242024-05-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-06-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 20242024-06-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-07-01 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 20242024-07-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-08-01 00:00:00 UTC312

What Hacker News says

2 sources
mustache_kimono·Sep 14, 2023
As others have noted, these are really opinionated suggestions. And while it's perfectly fine to have an opinion, many of these vary between "this isn't the way I'm used to Linux doing it" to the actually objectionable. The ones I find most personally objectionable: > - Don't make me name pools or snapshots. Assign pools the name {hostname}-[A-Z]. Name snapshots {pool name}_{datetime created} and give them numerical shortcuts so I never have to type that all out Not naming pools is just bonkers. You don't create pools often enough to not simply name them. Re: not naming snapshots, you could use `httm` and `zfs allow` for that[0]: $ httm -S . httm took a snapshot named: rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_tiebek@snap_2022-12-14-12:31:41_httmSnapFileMount > - collapse `zpool` and `zfs` into a single command `zfs` and `zpool` are just immaculate Un
Read the rest
ix commands, each of which has half a dozen sub commands. One the smartest decisions the ZFS designers made was not giving you a more complicated single administrative command. > - Provide an obvious way to mount and navigate a snapshot dataset instead of hiding the snapshot filesystem in a hidden directory Again -- you can do this very easily via `zfs mount`, but you'll have to trust me that a stable virtual interface also makes it very easy to search for all file versions, something which is much more difficult to achieve with btrfs, et. al. See again `httm` [1]. [0]: https://kimono-koans.github.io/opinionated-guide/#dynamic-sn... [1]: https://github.com/kimono-koans/httm
In ZFS for Dummies
Modified3019·Sep 5, 2023
Outside of it being a good idea to manually set `ashift=12` on each vdev creation (because disks lie and zfs’s whitelist isn’t omniscient. I’ve seen too many people burned by this) and `atime=off` for datasets (because burning IO updating the metadata because you’ve accessed something is just fucking stupid), the defaults are sane and you can basically refuse to care about them after that. Every system I’ve used has `compression=on` set as default, which currently means lz4. People set it manually out of paranoia from earlier days I think. For linux systems you can set `xattr=sa` and `acltype=posixacl` if you like, which offers a minor optimization that you’ll never notice. I suppose if you don’t like how much memory zfs uses for ARC, you can reduce it. For desktop use 2-4gb is plenty. For actual active heavier storage use like working wi
Read the rest
th big files or via a slow HDD filled NAS, 8GB+ is a better amount. Dataset recordsize can be set as well, but that’s really something for nerds like me that have huge static archives (set to 1-4MiB) or virtual machines (match with qcow2’s 64KiB cluster size). The default recordsize works well enough for everything that unless you have a particular concern, you don’t need to care. I should note, beware of rolling release linux distros and ZFS. The linux kernel breaks compatibility nonstop, and sometimes it can take a while for zfs to catch up. This means your distro can update to a new kernel version, and suddenly you can’t load your filesystem. ZFSbootmenu is probably the best way to navigate that, it makes rolling back easy. You also want to setup automatic snapshots, snapshot pruning, and sending of snapshots to a backup machine. Highly recommend https://github.com/jimsalterjrs/sanoid If you really find yourself wanting to gracefully deal with rollbacks and differences in a project, HotTubTimeMachine (HTTM) is nice to be aware of: https://github.com/kimono-koans/httm
In ZFS for Dummies

MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

A few shortcuts

/
Search the collection
?
Open this guide
Esc
Close dialogs and navigation

Your saved repositories and interests stay in this browser.