Initializing a Repository

First of all we need to initialize an empty directory (in this case /tmp/knoxite) as a repository:

$ knoxite -r /tmp/knoxite repo init
Enter password:
Created new repository at /tmp/knoxite

knoxite encrypts all the data in the repository with the supplied password. Be warned: if you lose this password, you won’t be able to access any of your data.

Initializing a Volume

Each repository can contain several volumes, which store our data organized in snapshots. So let’s create one:

$ knoxite -r /tmp/knoxite volume init "Backups" -d "My system backups"
Volume 66e03034 (Name: Backups, Description: My system backups) created

Listing Volumes

Now you can get a list of all volumes stored in this repository:

$ knoxite -r /tmp/knoxite volume list
ID        Name                              Description
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
66e03034  Backups                           My system backups

Storing data

Run the following command to create a new snapshot and store your home directory in the newly created volume:

$ knoxite -r /tmp/knoxite store [volume ID] $HOME -d "Backup of all my data"
document.txt          5.69 MiB / 5.69 MiB [#########################################] 100.00%
other.txt             4.17 MiB / 4.17 MiB [#########################################] 100.00%
...
Snapshot cebc1213 created: 9 files, 8 dirs, 0 symlinks, 0 errors, 1.23 GiB Original Size, 1.23 GiB Storage Size

Listing Snapshots

Now you can get an overview of all snapshots stored in this volume:

$ knoxite -r /tmp/knoxite snapshot list [volume ID]
ID        Date                 Original Size  Storage Size  Description
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
cebc1213  2016-07-29 02:27:15       1.23 GiB      1.23 GiB  Backup of all my data
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                    1.23 GiB      1.23 GiB

Viewing a snapshot’s content

Running the following command lists the entire content of a snapshot:

$ knoxite -r /tmp/knoxite ls [snapshot ID]
Perms       User   Group          Size  ModTime              Name
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-rw-r--r--  user   group      5.69 MiB  2016-07-29 02:06:04  document.txt
-rw-r--r--  user   group      4.17 MiB  2016-07-29 02:05:22  other.txt
...

Displaying a file’s contents

With the following command you can also print out a file’s content to stdout:

$ knoxite -r /tmp/knoxite cat [snapshot ID] document.txt
This is the sample text stored in document.txt

Restoring a snapshot

You can restore the latest snapshot to /tmp/myhome by running:

$ knoxite -r /tmp/knoxite restore [snapshot ID] /tmp/myhome
document.txt          5.69 MiB / 5.69 MiB [#########################################] 100.00%
other.txt             4.17 MiB / 4.17 MiB [#########################################] 100.00%
...
Restore done: 9 files, 8 dirs, 0 symlinks, 0 errors, 1.23 GiB Original Size, 1.23 GiB Storage Size

Cloning a snapshot

It’s easy to clone an existing snapshot, adding files to or updating existing files in it:

$ knoxite -r /tmp/knoxite clone [snapshot ID] $HOME
document.txt          5.89 MiB / 5.89 MiB [#########################################] 100.00%
other.txt             5.10 MiB / 5.10 MiB [#########################################] 100.00%
...
Snapshot aefc4591 created: 9 files, 8 dirs, 0 symlinks, 0 errors, 1.34 GiB Original Size, 1.34 GiB Storage Size

Mounting a snapshot

You can even mount a snapshot (currently read-only, read-write is work-in-progress):

$ knoxite -r /tmp/knoxite mount [snapshot ID] /mnt