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    When VM has changes from latest snapshot?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Xen Orchestra
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    • Z Offline
      Zevgeny
      last edited by marcungeschikts

      Hi, in VirtualBox, when you make a snapshot, the UI will show whether the current state of the VM has deviated from the latest snapshot.

      Is there any equivalent in XO, or via command line?

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      • olivierlambertO Offline
        olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
        last edited by

        It will deviate instantly if the VM is running (because new blocks are created all the time).

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        • Z Offline
          Zevgeny
          last edited by

          Yes, I understand that. But in VirtualBox it is useful to know if the VM has been run since the snapshot.

          Eg. I make a snapshot. I do some temporary changes. I revert back to snapshot. I go away and do something else.

          Weeks later, I come back to the thing, and ask myself, "Did I remember to revert back to snapshot?"

          Or the reverse scenario, where I am expecting the VM to be identical to the snapshot, but someone else in the team had actually done some temporary changes, so I have to go and ask them if they are still in the middle of using the VM or whether I can revert to snapshot.

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          • olivierlambertO Offline
            olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
            last edited by

            I'm not sure to understand what to do in this case, ie I'm generally using snapshot creation date + description to check what's going on.

            How could you imagine an UI telling you exactly what happened? The log section of the VM?

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            • Z Offline
              Zevgeny @olivierlambert
              last edited by

              @olivierlambert Here's how VirtualBox does it.

              When the VM is the same as snapshot:
              23052387-8cd8-4e8a-bd38-8804a17f5066-image.png

              After the VM is run and has changed:
              181ec493-b102-4cb2-a278-8897a39148e3-image.png

              It also works when you have multiple different snapshots, or branches of snapshots - it will tell you which snapshot the current state is based on, and whether it has changed.

              I guess in XO, you could have "Current State" or "Current State (changed)" next to the snapshot in the snapshots tab. Or icons representing them.

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              • olivierlambertO Offline
                olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                last edited by

                Can you show me a more complex scenario so I can be sure to understand the "functional specification"?

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                • Z Offline
                  Zevgeny @olivierlambert
                  last edited by

                  @olivierlambert Sorry for the late reply. Here's some screenshots of a more complex scenario. VirtualBox's GUI isn't very good, so it can look a bit confusing. I'll try to explain what is happening as best as I can.

                  Capture.PNG

                  Here's a VM where we have several snapshots in two branches. You can see the main line of Release Candidate snapshots from 1 to 4.

                  At some point we went back to RC2, and made some changes to that snapshot, and made a new series of snapshots "Release Candidate 2 alternative"

                  Capture2.PNG

                  In the image above, we have restored the RC3 snapshot, and booted it / made modifications. The "current state" icon is basically the most recently restored or taken snapshot. When you boot the VM, it's the snapshot closest to what you will see. As soon as you boot and the state of the VM changes, you'll see "Current State (changed)" instead. If we didn't like the changes, we could shut down the VM, restore the RC3 snapshot, and the icon will change to "Current State" again.

                  Capture3.PNG

                  In the image above, we continued working on the RC3 snapshot with further changes, and created a snapshot branch "Release Candidate 3 alternative"

                  So yeah, that's how VirtualBox works. I'm not really asking for the multi-branch functionality in XO, but like I said, it would be nice to see which snapshot was most recently restored/taken, and whether the VM has been booted / modified since that snapshot.

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                  • olivierlambertO Offline
                    olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                    last edited by

                    This will be released tomorrow or Wednesday (a "check" mark on the VM parent snapshot)

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                    • Z Offline
                      Zevgeny @olivierlambert
                      last edited by Zevgeny

                      @olivierlambert said in When VM has changes from latest snapshot?:

                      This will be released tomorrow or Wednesday (a "check" mark on the VM parent snapshot)

                      I just tried it out, thanks so much! It works pretty well, just missing one thing.

                      Would it be possible to give an additional or different icon to indicate that the VM state has deviated from the parent snapshot? For example, a Tilde ~ symbol.

                      So the process looks like this:

                      (When reverting to snapshot.)

                      1. Revert to snapshot -> parent snapshot gets a "check" mark, mouseover text "current snapshot".

                      2. If I boot the VM, the check mark immedately turns into a tilde, mouseover text "current snapshot (changed)"

                      (When creating a snapshot with the VM shut down)

                      1. Create a snapshot -> new snapshot gets a "check" mark, mouseover text "current snapshot".

                      2. If I boot the VM, the check mark immedately turns into a tilde, mouseover text "current snapshot (changed)"

                      (When creating a snapshot with the VM already running)

                      1. Create a snapshot -> new snapshot gets a tilde, mouseover text "current snapshot (changed)"
                      pdoniasP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • olivierlambertO Offline
                        olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                        last edited by

                        Pinging @pdonias

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                        • pdoniasP Offline
                          pdonias Vates 🪐 XO Team @Zevgeny
                          last edited by

                          @zevgeny Thanks for the suggestion, we'll implement something along those lines.

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                          • MathieuRAM Offline
                            MathieuRA Vates 🪐 XO Team
                            last edited by

                            Hello @Zevgeny .
                            Finally, we won't be able to display if the vm has changed since the snapshot.

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