Creating a snapshot
Snapshotting a server takes an instant copy of the server’s disk which can then be used as the Image for new servers.
The snapshots can also be downloaded from the image library.
Create the snapshot
Snapshots are created using the brightbox-servers snapshot command. Just give it the id of the server you want to snapshot:
$ brightbox-servers snapshot srv-gwgk2
Snapshotting server srv-gwgk2View the snapshot image info
Taking the snapshot is instantaneous, but it then takes a few minutes to be copied into the image library. You can see the resulting image in the image list:
$ brightbox-images list
id owner type created_on status size name
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
img-99q79 brightbox official 2010-10-02 public 10244 CentOS 5.5 server (i686)
img-pnqnc brightbox official 2010-10-03 public 10240 CentOS 5.5 server (x86_64)
img-qjuex brightbox official 2010-10-14 public 10244 Fedora 14 Beta Base (i686)
img-vyeeg brightbox official 2010-10-15 public 10244 Fedora 14 Beta Base (x86_64)
img-1okdf brightbox official 2010-11-19 public 20480 FreeBSD 8.1 minimal (i686)
img-aoubd brightbox official 2010-11-19 public 20480 FreeBSD 8.1 minimal (x86_64)
img-tjjt6 brightbox official 2010-09-27 public 1409 Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 server (x86_64)
img-hm6oj brightbox official 2010-10-01 public 1409 Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 server (i686)
img-9vxqi brightbox official 2010-10-14 public 1409 Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 server (i686)
img-t4p09 brightbox official 2010-10-14 public 1409 Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 server (x86_64)
img-y22uq acc-h3nbk snapshot 2010-12-19 creating 20480 Snapshot of srv-gwgk2 19 Dec 12:57 (i686)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The snapshot has been given the image id img-y22uq and is currently creating. The name field indicates the image is the result of a snapshot of srv-gwgk2.
$ brightbox-images show img-y22uq
id: img-y22uq
type: snapshot
owner: acc-h3nbk
created_at: 2010-12-19T12:57:37Z
status: private
arch: i686
name: Snapshot of srv-gwgk2 19 Dec 12:57 (i686)
description:
virtual_size: 20480
disk_size: 421
compatibility_mode: false
official: false
ancestor_id: img-9vxqiHere you can see that the snapshot copy has now completed and the status is private, which means only your account has access to it. The virtual_size is how big the entire disk is and the disk_size is how big the actual snapshot is. The disk_size will vary depending on how much data is written to your server.
Create a new server using the snapshot
The snapshot image can be used like any other image. You can build a clone of the original server like this:
$ brightbox-servers create -n "myclone" img-y22uq
Creating a nano (typ-4nssg) server with image Snapshot of srv-gwgk2 19 Dec 12:57 (img-y22uq)
id status type zone created_on image_id cloud_ips name
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
srv-v2fym creating nano gb1-b 2010-12-19 img-y22uq myclone
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------The new server will be given a new identifier and IP address, but otherwise will be identical to the one you originally snapshotted.
Downloading a copy of the image
The snapshot image is automatically available for download from the image library via ftp. This allows you to take a copy of a server to run on your local development environment, or to migrate it to another host.
You’ll need your image library ftp credentials (see the Image Library guide for more details).
$ lftp acc-h3nbk@ftp.library.gb1.brightbox.com
Password: xxxxxxxxxxxx
lftp acc-h3nbk@ftp.library.gb1.brightbox.com:/> cd images
lftp acc-h3nbk@ftp.library.gb1.brightbox.com:/images> ls -h
-rw-r--r-- 1 acc-h3nbk library 420.1M Dec 19 13:00 img-y22uq.gz
lftp acc-h3nbk@ftp.library.gb1.brightbox.com:/images> get img-y22uq.gz The image is just a raw copy of the disk, compressed using the gzip utility. You can uncompress it using gunzip and boot it using virtualisation software such as kvm, or xen (in hvm mode).
Would you like to know more?
Here you created a snapshot, then created a new server using the snapshot image and finally downloaded the image via ftp.
You might want to learn more about how to upload your own image to the image library.