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Yaesm is a configurable backup tool that connects utilities such as Btrfs, ZFS, rsync, tar, GnuPG and Zstandard into custom pipelines described in YAML. Nicholas Hubbard says he uses it to keep local snapshots of his laptop, transfer backups to a home server, and copy server backup artifacts to an external drive for longer retention. That is his personal setup, not a universal backup recipe.
Why Yaesm was built
Nicholas Hubbard and Connor Gallivan began Yaesm as a more flexible successor to Yabsm, Hubbard’s earlier Btrfs snapshot manager. Yabsm was limited by its Btrfs focus, a custom configuration language and restricted scheduling. Yaesm was intended to work with backup tools beyond Btrfs and to support backups run either on demand or on a schedule.
Instead of locking users into one backup method, Yaesm defines pipelines in YAML. Its design moved from interchangeable backends toward configurable pipelines: drivers advertise capabilities such as snapshot creation, compression or encryption, and type annotations help determine which capabilities can be connected.
How Hubbard’s backup workflow is arranged
Hubbard says his laptop and home server both use Btrfs. Yaesm runs on the server, which pulls backups from the laptop over SSH through Tailscale. The workflow has three storage tiers:
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- Laptop: Frequent local snapshots provide a nearby recovery point.
- Home server: Btrfs send/receive transfers backups from the laptop to the server.
- External drive: The server copies existing backup artifacts to a drive connected to it. Hubbard keeps these copies longer, so most of his backup history resides on the external drive.
Hubbard summarizes the setup this way: “I use Yaesm to back up my laptop and home server, both of which use Btrfs.”
This description explains one person’s arrangement; it does not establish comparative costs, capacity needs, transfer speeds or durability for the storage tiers. The article does not specify the external drive’s capacity, model or interface.
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- The available storage capacity may vary.
How the example retention settings work
The article’s example configuration retains 365 daily backups and 48 monthly backups on the external drive. These are example counts, not measured results or a recommended policy for every user.
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Count-based retention keeps a specified number of backups. Because “keep-last” counts backups rather than elapsed days, skipped backups—such as when nothing changed—can make the retained history cover more calendar time than the count suggests. Hubbard also mentions age-based retention, such as keep-for: 1y, which expresses retention as a duration rather than a number of backups.
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- To get set up, connect the portable hard drive to a computer for automatic recognition no software required
- This USB drive provides plug and play simplicity with the included 18 inch USB 3.0 cable
- The available storage capacity may vary.
| Retention style | What the rule specifies | Practical distinction |
|---|---|---|
| Count-based, such as keep-last | A number of backups; the article’s example includes 365 daily and 48 monthly backups for the external drive. | The calendar span can extend when unchanged backups are skipped. |
Age-based, such as keep-for: 1y |
An elapsed period of one year in the example syntax. | Defines retention by age rather than by how many backups exist. |
What the release snapshot does—and does not—establish
When Hubbard published his article on September 12, 2026, he described Yaesm as pre-release and said CI packages were built only for Debian and Fedora. Release status and package availability can change, so that statement applies to the article’s publication snapshot. The project’s GitHub page is the destination the article provides for code, packages and the manual: Yaesm on GitHub.
The article also says the authors used pytest and Vagrant to test in virtual machines with real filesystems, simulating local and SSH backups. Hubbard describes the test coverage as “very high,” but gives no percentage or independently verified result; the wording should not be read as a quantified coverage claim.
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- To get set up, connect the portable hard drive to a computer for automatic recognition no software required
- This USB drive provides plug and play simplicity with the included 18 inch USB 3.0 cable
- The available storage capacity may vary.
Planned capabilities are not confirmed support
Hubbard names rclone, bcachefs, pigz and age as planned additions. Those are plans reported in the article, not confirmation that those drivers were supported at publication or are available now. Check the project documentation for current capabilities before designing a pipeline around them.
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