Collect orphaned snapshots by name: the sidecar lives in tmpfs
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A reboot mid-backup orphaned the entire tree, permanently. The sidecar is the record
of which snapshots a run pinned -- and /run is tmpfs. A reboot or crash between the
recursive snapshot and its cleanup destroyed that record, leaving one snapshot per
descendant dataset (250+ on a real pool) with nothing pointing at them. Nothing would
ever have found them.

gc_stale_snapshots() identifies leftovers by NAME, so it works when the record is
gone. It runs after the sidecar reclaim -- the recorded path stays authoritative and
the collector only mops up what the record lost.

It deletes data on a name match, which is a weaker claim than a recorded fact, so the
selection is a pure function with the harshest tests here. A snapshot is collected
only if the name is exactly <dataset>@<task>-<YYYYMMDDHHMMSS>, it is not the current
run's, NOTHING IS MOUNTED FROM IT (this, not the age guard, is what protects a
concurrent backup), and it is over an hour old.

Checked against the real pool: of 4728 snapshots including 2341 periodic ones, it
selects exactly the orphans of the task being run and nothing else.
This commit is contained in:
2026-07-13 19:56:32 +00:00
parent 2b8ef107f7
commit 0d04c2cd1c
4 changed files with 360 additions and 1 deletions
+160
View File
@@ -55,6 +55,7 @@ Therefore this module owns the whole lifecycle:
from __future__ import annotations
import contextlib
import datetime
import os
import stat
import subprocess
@@ -68,10 +69,13 @@ __all__ = [
"cleanup_task",
"current_mounts_under",
"delete_snapshot_tree",
"gc_stale_snapshots",
"mounted_snapshots",
"plan_staging",
"sidecar_for",
"snapshot_tree_names",
"stage_nested",
"stale_snapshot_names",
"staging_root_for",
"teardown",
"verify_staged",
@@ -176,6 +180,76 @@ def snapshot_tree_names(snapshot: str, all_names) -> list[str]:
]
#: A snapshot must be at least this old before the garbage collector will touch it.
#:
#: The GC identifies our leftovers by NAME, so its only real risk is deleting a
#: snapshot belonging to a run that is still starting up -- the window between
#: `zfs snapshot -r` and the bind mounts appearing, which is seconds. An hour is three
#: orders of magnitude more slack than that window needs, and still reclaims a lost
#: tree on the very next daily run.
GC_MIN_AGE_SECONDS = 3600
def stale_snapshot_names(task_name, current_snapshot, all_names, now,
in_use=(), min_age=GC_MIN_AGE_SECONDS):
"""Snapshots THIS task created in an earlier run and never cleaned up.
Pure, because this is the one function here that DELETES DATA on a name match, and
a name match is a weaker claim than a recorded fact. Everything it relies on is an
argument, so every way it could be wrong is a test.
Why a garbage collector exists at all, when there is already a sidecar: **the
sidecar lives in /run, which is tmpfs.** A reboot mid-backup destroys it, and with
it the only record of a 250-snapshot tree. The sidecar handles the normal case
precisely; this handles the case where the record itself is gone.
A snapshot is ours to collect only if ALL of these hold:
* its name is exactly ``<dataset>@<task_name>-<YYYYMMDDHHMMSS>`` -- so
``cloud_backup-5`` never matches ``cloud_backup-50``'s snapshots, and never
matches a periodic ``auto-2026-…`` or anything a human made;
* it is not the snapshot the current run is using;
* nothing is mounted from it (`in_use`) -- an in-flight run pins its own
snapshots, so this alone protects a concurrent one-time backup;
* it is older than `min_age` -- which covers the seconds-long window in which a
run has taken its snapshot but not yet mounted it.
`now` is a timezone-aware datetime; timestamps in the name are UTC (stock builds
them with `utc_now()`).
"""
prefix = task_name + "-"
stale = []
for name in all_names:
_dataset, _, snapname = name.partition("@")
if not snapname or not snapname.startswith(prefix):
continue
if name == current_snapshot or snapname == _snapname_of(current_snapshot):
continue
if name in in_use:
continue
stamp = snapname[len(prefix):]
try:
when = datetime.datetime.strptime(stamp, "%Y%m%d%H%M%S").replace(
tzinfo=datetime.UTC
)
except ValueError:
# Not our timestamp format. Something else owns this name; leave it alone.
continue
if (now - when).total_seconds() < min_age:
continue
stale.append(name)
return stale
def _snapname_of(snapshot):
return snapshot.partition("@")[2] if snapshot else ""
def _probe_snapdir(path):
"""Classify a snapshot directory: ``ok``, ``missing``, or why it is unusable.
@@ -598,6 +672,80 @@ def delete_snapshot_tree(middleware, snapshot, logger=None, attempts=4,
return remaining
def mounted_snapshots(mounts_file="/proc/self/mounts"):
"""Every ZFS snapshot something is currently mounted from.
The device field of a snapshot mount IS the snapshot name (`Tap/apps/x@snap`), for
both our staging bind mounts and ZFS's own .zfs automounts. So this is a direct,
factual answer to "is anything using this snapshot right now" -- which is what
protects a concurrently-running backup from the garbage collector, rather than
trusting an age heuristic to be generous enough.
"""
live = set()
try:
with open(mounts_file, encoding="utf-8") as fh:
for line in fh:
dev = line.split(" ", 1)[0]
if "@" in dev:
live.add(dev.replace("\\040", " "))
except OSError:
return set()
return live
def gc_stale_snapshots(middleware, task_name, current_snapshot, logger=None,
now=None, mounts_file="/proc/self/mounts"):
"""Delete snapshots this task left behind in an earlier run. Returns what remains.
The backstop for when the RECORD is gone, not just the snapshots: the sidecar lives
in /run (tmpfs), so a reboot mid-backup takes it with them. Without this, that tree
-- one snapshot per descendant dataset, 250+ on a real pool -- is orphaned with
nothing left pointing at it.
Selection is `stale_snapshot_names()`, which is pure and heavily tested, because a
name match is a weaker claim than a recorded fact and this deletes data on one.
"""
dataset = current_snapshot.partition("@")[0]
now = now or datetime.datetime.now(datetime.UTC)
try:
snaps = middleware.call_sync(
"zfs.snapshot.query", [["name", "^", dataset]], {"select": ["name"]}
)
except Exception as e: # noqa: BLE001 - cannot enumerate; collect nothing
if logger:
logger.warning(
"truecloud-patch: could not enumerate snapshots for GC: %r", e
)
return []
stale = stale_snapshot_names(
task_name, current_snapshot, [s["name"] for s in snaps], now,
in_use=mounted_snapshots(mounts_file),
)
if not stale:
return []
if logger:
logger.warning(
"truecloud-patch: %d snapshot(s) from an earlier run of %s were never "
"cleaned up (a lost record, e.g. a reboot mid-backup); collecting them",
len(stale), task_name,
)
remaining = []
for name in stale:
try:
middleware.call_sync("zfs.snapshot.delete", name)
except Exception as e: # noqa: BLE001 - busy, or gone; either way, next run
remaining.append(name)
if logger:
logger.debug(
"truecloud-patch: could not collect %s: %r", name, e
)
return remaining
def stage_nested(middleware, path, snapshot, base_dataset, base_mountpoint,
task_name, datasets, logger=None):
"""Build a complete staging tree for `path` from the already-taken `snapshot`.
@@ -650,6 +798,18 @@ def stage_nested(middleware, path, snapshot, base_dataset, base_mountpoint,
"carrying them forward to the next run", len(pending),
)
# ...and collect anything from an earlier run that has NO record at all.
#
# The sidecar above is precise but lives in /run, which is tmpfs -- a reboot
# mid-backup destroys it and orphans the whole tree with nothing pointing at it.
# This finds those by name and is the only thing that ever will.
#
# It runs AFTER the sidecar reclaim on purpose: the recorded path is authoritative
# and cheap, and the GC should only ever be mopping up what the record lost.
pending.extend(
gc_stale_snapshots(middleware, task_name, snapshot, logger=logger)
)
# Record the snapshot BEFORE mounting anything, not after. middlewared can
# die at any point (this patch even schedules a restart at boot), and the
# sidecar is the only thing that survives it -- an in-process dict would take