How to take and restore VM snapshot using command line on XenServer

Objective

The objective is to create a new snapshot of a XenServer virtual machine and later restore from this snapshot.

Requirements

Privileged access to XenServer’s command line.

Difficulty

EASY

Instructions

Identify VM’s UUID

First, we need to identify a VM’s UUID we wish to take a snapshot from. Use xe vm-list to list all available VM:

# xe vm-list
uuid ( RO)           : 7371124f-7d4d-66b7-cbc7-a98b1457543e
     name-label ( RW): Debian Jessie 8.5
    power-state ( RO): halted


uuid ( RO)           : bad8e456-df88-435d-ba12-3f0f6e54b2c6
     name-label ( RW): Control domain on host: xenserver
    power-state ( RO): running

Take a snapshot

The UUID of the virtual machine we would like to take a snapshot is 7371124f-7d4d-66b7-cbc7-a98b1457543e. We use this UUID as well as xe vm-snapshot command to create a new snapshot with name Debian Jessie 8.5-Snapshot:

# xe vm-snapshot new-name-label="Debian Jessie 8.5-Snapshot" vm=7371124f-7d4d-66b7-cbc7-a98b1457543e
f100447b-09a0-7b4c-31c9-36b970ecc9dd

The snapshot has been created. You can list this snapshot using:

# xe snapshot-list name-label="Debian Jessie 8.5-Snapshot"
uuid ( RO)                : f100447b-09a0-7b4c-31c9-36b970ecc9dd
          name-label ( RW): Debian Jessie 8.5-Snapshot
    name-description ( RW): Installed via xe CLI

Restore from snapshot

Now we can restore from the snapshot. Please note that your VM will be halted as a result of the following linux command:

# xe snapshot-revert snapshot-uuid=f100447b-09a0-7b4c-31c9-36b970ecc9dd


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