@fohdeesha Great, thank you!

@jaayb Amazing, TYSM!

@olivierlambert I think the other commenter put it nicely - we are using snapshots a little bit like version control for the VMs. One of the things we use VMs for is to build golden images for desktop PCs, so maybe that's an unusual use case...

Putting aside how it works under the hood, it's also a GUI thing - it's a nice way to view and organize past versions of the VM, by having a list inside the VM's snapshots tab. It would be messier and less clear if they were separate VMs in the main list or exported XVAs.

Not being able to backup and restore the snapshots list is a little bit like losing our version control if a disaster happened to XO. I guess we'll have to stop using this feature in this way, or make more effort to manually export the snapshots we really need to back up.

Also, can you please confirm / deny what the previous commenter (gsrfan01) said? Is there a performance reduction when having snapshots on a VM's list?

@olivierlambert Thanks for the reply.

Hmm, we use snapshots as a specific record of certain named changes to our VMs, which we sometimes need to revert back to. Eg. (1) Base OS (2) Drivers and Apps installed (3) Prior to OS update (4) Post OS update, etc. Retention based on dates doesn't quite cover our use case.

There doesn't seem to be a way to backup a snapshot via the regular backup system, the only way is to export as XVA or copy it into its own VM entry?

Is there any way to populate the snapshots tab of a VM with exported / copied snapshots?

In VirtualBox, snapshots are a series of differencing images that only consume enough HD space to record changes. Is this not the case with XCP / XO? Is each snapshot a full standalone copy of the VM?

@olivierlambert Going back to my original question, I have a VM in XO with a few snapshots in its snapshot tab.

Is there a way to backup and restore the VM, such that everything is the same as before the backup (ie. a VM in XO with those particular snapshots in its snapshot tab.)

I'm struggling to express myself more clearly than this, is it clear what I'm trying to ask? I want the snapshots to be backed up and restored along with the VM, so everything appears the same as the original in the XO GUI.

@olivierlambert Hi, I finally got around to testing this.

• In XO, I go to the "Backup" section, and out of the backup types, I choose "Backup".

• I select my NAS as the destination remote.

• I choose a VM that has snapshots.

• I select Create and manually run the backup. After its done:

• I go to the Backup section in XO and select "Restore".

• I choose the VM I just backed up, and select the "Full" backup to restore.

• I restore to another host.

• Looking at the restored VM on the new host, there is nothing in the snapshots section.

Is this supposed to work? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks

Hi, is there any way to make a backup (or copy) of a VM, with all of its snapshots included as well?

Such that when you restore (or view its copy) the snapshot list is preserved exactly?

I came across this post in a google search.

"xe vm-param-cleaner" mentioned earlier doesnt seem to exist anymore. However the following command worked for me:

xe vm-param-clear uuid=<vm_uuid> param-name=blocked-operations

Hi, yesterday I got myself into a silly predicament when the VM I was using to run Xen Orchestra got stuck during its shutdown. It had been set to block accidental shutdowns, so I was unable to force shutdown using XCP-NG Centre, or the regular shutdown command on CLI. As far as I can tell, XCP-NG Centre is unable to toggle the "protect from accidental shutdown" setting, so I was pretty much stuck.

Google search turned up this thread:
https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/3885/cli-ssh-delete-vms-that-were-set-as-protect-from-accidental-deletion-in-xo

There's a post in there that mentioned "xe vm-param-cleaner", but that command doesnt exist.

As a guess, I tried this command instead, and it was able to clear the setting so I could do a force shutdown from command line:

xe vm-param-clear uuid=<vm_uuid> param-name=blocked-operations

Just posting this as a reference for future generations.

Maybe there should be a CLI command for "really force shutdown like I really really mean it", that ignores the "Protect" setting? With a confirmation prompt or something?

@fohdeesha Great, thank you!

@fohdeesha

Thanks for the reply. It truly sounds like the easiest and simplest solution is to require the admin to manually enter the required MAC address before booting the backup VM.

Just a question about MAC addresses, in XCP-NG and its underlying technologies, are there any restrictions on valid MAC addresses? I mean over and above the IEEE standard.

I'd like to specify some easy to type and remember mac addresses for my VMs. From reading the wikipedia article and other articles, it seems like something like 02-11-11-11-11-11, 02-22-22-22-22-22, etc would be valid? As long as I have 02 at the beginning?

Is there a range of MAC addresses where I can guarantee won't collide with the automatically generated ones? Do you have any advice on a nicely human-readable set of MAC addresses I can use? I only need a range of about 10 in total...