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Volume Snapshots of an Instance in a Powered Off State #9496
Description
ISSUE TYPE
- Enhancement Request
COMPONENT NAME
UI
CLOUDSTACK VERSION
4.19.1.0
CONFIGURATION
N/A
OS / ENVIRONMENT
Ubuntu 22.04
KVM
SUMMARY
Ability to create Volume Snapshots of all attached volumes to an instance from the Powered off Instance.
STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1.) Go to Compute --> Instances
2.) Click on a Powered off Instance.
3.) Click on a button to create a Volume Snapshot
EXPECTED RESULTS
Being able to create a Volume Snapshot of all attached Volumes to an instance from the Instance screen while the instance is in a powered off state.
ACTUAL RESULTS
Today you have to navigate to Storage --> Volumes and take a Volume Snapshot each individual volume when the instance is in a powered off state.
Activity
rajujith commentedon Aug 7, 2024
@scottsignal Make sure you enable the global configuration 'kvm.snapshot.enabled' then navigate to the volume of the instance and you should be able to create a volume snapshot of the instance irrespective of the Power status of the instance.
scottsignal commentedon Aug 12, 2024
We have kvm.snapshot.enabled set to True. This was generated from feedback we received that its inconvenient to have to navigate to volumes. They felt that it should be reasonable to do this from the instances tab and do a volume snapshot on all volumes attached to that instance in a powered off state.
JoaoJandre commentedon Aug 13, 2024
Do you intend to restore all the volumes simultaneously? If so, what you want is a VM snapshot (without memory).
scottsignal commentedon Aug 13, 2024
I had not thought about the restore side, but it would make sense to be able to do the initial creation and restore all volumes attached to an instance simultaneously. And yes, I was assuming that it would be a VM snapshot (without memory). The Instance would be powered off, so it would be clean and no need for a memory snapshot.
JoaoJandre commentedon Aug 13, 2024
@scottsignal Currently, using KVM as the hypervisor, ACS does not support taking disk-only VM snapshots of stopped VMs. I am already working on a feature that will enable this behavior (You can take a look at #9524 if you want). However, I first need to merge #9270 before I can put more energy on this feature. So I expect it will only be available in 4.21.0.0
scottsignal commentedon Aug 13, 2024
This sounds good to me. Thanks!
slavkap commentedon Jul 11, 2025
@scottsignal, I don't know what primary storage you are using, but for most of the storage types, this option
kvm.vmstoragesnapshot.enabled, if enabled, works on running VMs as well (without the memory)But the qemu-guest-agent should be installed on the guest VM, and when taking a VM snapshot, the VM will be frozen
scottsignal commentedon Jul 11, 2025
We are using NFS and already have
kvm.vmstoragesnapshot.enabledenabled. It's more about the ability to volume snapshot the entire powered off instance. For example, if you have an instance with 10 disks attached, you have to do this 10 times from for each volume from the volume screen in the UI.slavkap commentedon Jul 11, 2025
@scottsignal,
kvm.vmstoragesnapshot.enabledis for VM snapshots without memory. Ultimately, it will create disk snapshots of all 10 volumes (which are not visible to the user), but they will be under one VM snapshot.scottsignal commentedon Jul 11, 2025
The problem is that in order to use Instance Snapshots the instance must be powered on, correct?
slavkap commentedon Jul 14, 2025
@scottsignal, yes, this works on running virtual machines (with volumes on pools like Ceph and NFS).
scottsignal commentedon Jul 14, 2025
The enhancement Request is for
Powered off. I realize you can do itpowered on, but that isn't an option in some cases.Ability to create Volume Snapshots of all attached volumes to an instance from the Powered off Instance.EDIT: I realized that my
EXPECTED RESULTSdidn't includePowered Off. So, I apologize if this was the confusion.slavkap commentedon Jul 14, 2025
@scottsignal, thank you for the explanation. I'm sorry that I probably missed a few things.
Some of the storage plug-ins support VM snapshots on both running/stopped VMs. After you mentioned that you're using NFS, @JoaoJandre's PR will solve your issue, but it won't fix it in general for the rest of the storage plug-ins that are using
kvm.vmstoragesnapshot.enabledoption (e.g. Ceph).