Checkpoints and snapshots
Automatic encrypted off-site checkpoints every five minutes, named snapshots, retention and restoring a snapshot as a new Kiste.
Kiste keeps your work in two kinds of restore points:
- Automatic checkpoints, taken for you, always on.
- Named snapshots, taken when you ask, kept until you delete them.
Both are snapshots of the Kiste's disk, both are copied off-site encrypted, and both can be restored as a new Kiste.
Automatic checkpoints
Every Kiste is checkpointed:
- every five minutes when its disk changed (nothing is taken while it is idle);
- when it stops, before it restarts, before it is forked and before it is deleted.
A checkpoint is taken with the Kiste's file system frozen for a moment, so it
is consistent like a cleanly unmounted disk. When the Kiste is writing too
heavily to freeze in time, the checkpoint is taken anyway and marked
crash-consistent: like a power cut, every write that was flushed is in it.
Change the interval when you create a Kiste, from 60 seconds to one day:
Checkpoints can't be switched off.
Off-site and encrypted
Each checkpoint is copied to object storage in the EU, in two independent locations. Only the parts of the disk that changed since the last checkpoint are uploaded. Everything is compressed and encrypted with AES-256-GCM under a key that belongs to your account alone, before it leaves the computer that runs the Kiste; the storage holds no readable data, not even file names. A checkpoint counts as off-site only once both locations hold all of it.
kiste status shows when the newest checkpoint was taken and when it was held
off-site:
How long checkpoints are kept
For each Kiste:
| Age | Kept |
|---|---|
| Any | The newest three, always |
| Last hour | Every checkpoint |
| Last 24 hours | The newest of each hour |
| Last 14 days | The newest of each day |
Older checkpoints are deleted automatically. When you delete a Kiste, its last checkpoint is taken and its automatic checkpoints are kept for 14 days, so a Kiste deleted by mistake can still be restored. After that they are deleted. Named snapshots are never deleted automatically.
Named snapshots
Takes a snapshot of a running Kiste's disk now. Without --name, the name is
the Kiste's name and the time, such as review-42-20261006-142530 (UTC). Named
snapshots are copied off-site like checkpoints, and they stay, also after the
Kiste is deleted, until you delete them:
Snapshots count toward your account's disk limit.
List snapshots
The list shows every snapshot and checkpoint of your account with its source
Kiste, its trigger (manual, interval, stop, restart, fork or
delete), its state, age and size, and its off-site state (uploaded ×2 when
both locations hold it, uploading, pending or failed). The console shows
them under Snapshots.
Restore
Restoring creates a new, independent Kiste from the snapshot; the Kiste the snapshot came from is not touched, and neither is the snapshot. The new Kiste boots fresh from the restored disk and has the size of the original.
Recent checkpoints still have a copy next to the Kiste and restore instantly. Older ones restore from the off-site copy: the new Kiste starts right away and fetches its disk in the background as it reads it, so you don't wait for the whole disk to download.
In the console, choose Restore on a snapshot and enter a name.
What a snapshot does not contain
A snapshot holds the disk, not the memory: a restored Kiste boots fresh. A
saved session (kiste stop --snapshot) is a different thing, see
Lifecycle.