[CentOS-virt] proper way to snapshot

Nux!

nux at li.nux.ro
Thu Apr 26 18:24:04 UTC 2012


On 26.04.2012 19:21, aurfalien wrote:
> On Apr 26, 2012, at 2:15 PM, Nux! wrote:
>
>> On 26.04.2012 19:12, aurfalien wrote:
>>> On Apr 26, 2012, at 1:54 PM, Nux! wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 26.04.2012 18:23, aurfalien wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> While there are a few howtos floating around, what is the 
>>>>> standard
>>>>> way to snapshot guests?
>>>>>
>>>>> I went through and converted from raw to pre allocated meta data
>>>>> qcow2 images for this purpose.
>>>>>
>>>>> Some howtos suggest to do an xml snapshot file as so;
>>>>>
>>>>> <domainsnapshot>
>>>>>  <name>UbuntuServer_10.10-16032011</name>
>>>>>  <description>Snapshot of OS install and updates</description>
>>>>> </domainsnapshot>
>>>>>
>>>>> And then to run as so;
>>>>>
>>>>> virsh snapshot-create UbuntuServer_10.10 
>>>>> UbuntuServer_10.10-ss.xml
>>>>>
>>>>> Seems a bit over kill.
>>>>>
>>>>> I was thinking more along the lines of this;
>>>>>
>>>>> qemu-img snapshot -c $date $filename
>>>>>
>>>>> qemu-img convert -f qcow2 -O qcow2 -s $date $filename
>>>>> $filename-$date
>>>>>
>>>>> Or something like this.Anyways, hoping to see how you all are 
>>>>> doing
>>>>> this for best practice sort of thing.
>>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I just use LVM snapshots; it's the fastest, most reliable way I
>>>> could
>>>> come with.
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I don't have LVMs.
>>>
>>> But if I did, would it be possible to only snapshot a directory or
>>> will it snapshot the entire file system?
>>
>> Assuming you use LVM on the host to provide the virtual machine with 
>> a
>> (virtual) HDD, then snapshotting that will obviously be (virtual)
>> disk-wise.
>
> I used a simple non LVM partitioning scheme.
>
> Can I do directory based snapshots in LVM or is it the entire FS?
>
> I can re implement or redo my host to use LVM.
>
> - aurf
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS-virt mailing list
> CentOS-virt at centos.org
> http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-virt

Aurf,

LVM is filesystem level, not directory level. What I'd recommend is to 
reinstall and use LVM, make a couple of volumes for / and swap and leave 
the rest for virtual machines.

-- 
Sent from the Delta quadrant using Borg technology!

Nux!
www.nux.ro



More information about the CentOS-virt mailing list