[libvirt-users] Help with understanding and solving snapshot problem

[rolf]

Hello

On 11 Apr 2014, at 8:52 am, Eric Blake <eblake at redhat.com> wrote:

[ … ]

> 
>>>> # virsh snapshot-info host1 --current
>>>> Name:           snap1-host1
>>>> Domain:         host1
>>>> Current:        yes
>>>> State:          shutoff
>>>> Location:       internal
>>> 
> 
>> # virsh snapshot-dumpxml host1 snap1-host1
>> <domainsnapshot>
>>  <name>snap1-host1</name>
>>  <description>After install completed</description>
>>  <state>shutoff</state>
>>  <creationTime>1390111150</creationTime>
>>  <memory snapshot='no'/>
>>  <disks>
>>    <disk name='vda' snapshot='external'>
> 
> Okay, we've definitely demonstrated a bug in at least 'virsh
> snapshot-list' for that particular build of libvirt; this proves that
> the snapshot is definitely external, even though the info output claimed
> it was internal.  I didn't search whether a bugzilla entry was already
> tracking this for RHEL 6.5; it's not a crasher, so it probably won't get
> fixed until RHEL 6.6.  If you'd like, you can open a BZ, (it might get
> closed as a dup if someone else finds where it was already reported,
> even though I didn't do that search), to make sure it doesn't get lost

Thanks I’ll sort out getting bugzilla report put it. But will search it first.

> Meanwhile, creating external snapshots is supported in that version of
> RHEL, but not deleting (at least not via virsh directly), so you'll have
> to get your hands a bit dirty with qemu-img and virsh edit.
> 
>>      <driver type='qcow2'/>
>>      <source file='/var/lib/libvirt/snap1-host1.qcow2'/>
> 
> This says that snap1-host1.qcow2 is the wrapper file created at the time
> of the snapshot, and that...
> 
>>    </disk>
>>    <disk name='vdb' snapshot='external'>
>>      <driver type='qcow2'/>
>>      <source file='/var/lib/libvirt/snap1-host1-db.qcow2'/>
>>    </disk>
>>    <disk name='hdc' snapshot='no'/>
>>  </disks>
>>  <domain type='kvm'>
> ...
>>    <devices>
>>      <emulator>/usr/libexec/qemu-kvm</emulator>
>>      <disk type='file' device='disk'>
>>        <driver name='qemu' type='raw' cache='none'/>
>>        <source file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/host1.img'/>
> 
> it should have a backing file of /var/lib/libvirt/images/host1.img.
> Wonder why your 'qemu-img info' output didn't show that fact?

I’m not sure.

File is definitely there but hasn’t been used since creation it seems.
Something else I don’t quite understand.

# ls -l /var/lib/libvirt/images/host1.img 
-rw------- 1 qemu qemu 25769803776 Jan 19 16:58 /var/lib/libvirt/images/host1.img

I presume that had I never created a snapshot then its this file 
that would change as the VM is used?


>>> 
>>> I don't quite have a full picture of how you got into the situation.  If
>>> you are trying to just get rid of the snapshot, you could always try
>>> 'virsh snapshot-delete --metadata host1 snap1-host1', to make libvirt
>>> forget about the snapshot without cleaning up any actual data (leaving
>>> any external backing chains intact, and not removing internal snapshots
>>> from qcow2 files).
>> 
>> ok. What implications does this have long term?
>> Is there then a related step to remove the data of the snapshot that is no longer referenced?
>> Reclaiming the space would be handy.
> 
> Are you trying to revert to that state, or just forget that you ever
> took the snapshot?  Are you okay keeping the two files as a backing
> chain, or do you want to collapse it into one?  And if you DO want to
> collapse into one file (so you can delete the other), do you want the
> kept file to be snap1-host1.qcow2 (do a blockpull operation) or
> host1.img (do a commit operation)?

ok.  What I’d like is to have a state where the snapshot I took never existed. 
Which I assume means that the img file in /var/lib/libvirt/images becomes
the file used as the VM as its used?

Then I’d like to make a snapshot of the guest - memory and disk state. 
But the second disk be excluded 
(its a separate mount point for the guest for MySQL data)

But if I can get it working reliably a snapshot of both disks would
also be desirable for me.

>> And as before, given the structure of the VM and its two disks, how is a snapshot created
>> excluding the second disk? vdb in the above xml output?
> 
> If you create the snapshot via command line, 'virsh snapshot-create-as
> host1 --name ... --diskspec vda,file=/path/for/disk --diskspec
> vdb,snapshot=no' should be sufficient to exclude vdb from the snapshot
> (you can use the --print-xml option to see what those options would
> actually pass to the virDomainSnapshotCreateXML command).

ok.  in “/path/for/disk” is that a path or a filename - called “disk” and can it be
anything?  The default seem sot have been /var/lib/libvirt/  Is that not ideal??

Thanks again.  This is helping.

regards

rolf.


>> 
>> Many thanks for your help so far.
> 
> Glad to hear it, and hope we can continue to be helpful.
> 
> -- 
> Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
> Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org
>