Create snapshot

A snapshot is a point-in-time snapshot of the state of an instance or a volume.

You can create a snapshot of a single volume or create a snapshot of an instance, when creating a snapshot of an instance, snapshots get created for each volume attached to the instance. Metadata about the instance gets saved as an image.

This part will focus on creating a snapshot of an instance. This will allow you to create a new instance from the snapshot.

Note

Creating a new instance from the image created from a snapshot will reuse some parameters from the original instance but not for example instance ports (and thus not any IP addressing).

Important

For data integrity reasons, we recommend shutting of the instance before taking a snapshot.

Incomplete writes might otherwise impact data integrity and in result in a inconsistent snapshot with corrupt data resulting in at worst data loss.

We recommend only having snapshots for limited periods of time and recommend that you regularly delete snapshots.

Caution

Snapshots is NOT backups and are does not provide any more data safety or guarantee than the underlying storage used for the volume does.

Cloud management portal

To create a snapshot using the Cloud management portal

  • Press Compute and then Instances in the sidebar menu.

  • Press the instance that you want to resize.

  • Press the Snapshots tab.

  • Press Create snapshot button.

  • Name your snapshot.

  • Press Create

Your snapshot is available in the Snapshot tab of the instance and if you press Storage and then Snapshots in the main menu. In the latter case, there will be one snapshot per volume of the instance you created the snapshots from (only one if the instance only had a single volume).

OpenStack Horizon

To create a snapshot using OpenStack Horizon

  • Under Project, click Compute and then Instances in the sidebar menu.

  • In the dropdown menu to the far right of the line corresponding to the instance you want to snapshot, press Create snapshot (which is either the default option if the instance is running, of in the dropdown if it’s not running).

  • Name your snapshot.

  • Press Create Snapshot

Your snapshot is available in the Images menu (under main menu Compute) as well as if you press Volumes and then Snapshots in the main menu. In the latter case, there will be one snapshot per volume of the instance you created the snapshots from (only one if the instance only had a single volume).

OpenStack Terminal Client

To create a snapshot using the OpenStack Terminal Client

  • Run this command: openstack server list, note the name of the instance you want to snapshot.

  • Run this command: openstack server image create --name [SNAPSHOT_NAME] [INSTANCE_NAME], replacing the items in angle brackets with a descriptive name (this is optional, if omitted the instance name will be used) and and the name of the instance you want to snapshot.

  • Run this command to verify: openstack image list --private

See also