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Overview

Instance snapshots capture the entire disk state of a running or stopped instance as a new image registered in the Xloud Image Service. Snapshots are used for backups, creating golden images for new instance launches, and cloning instances across projects. The snapshot is stored in the same format as the original boot image and can be launched on any compute host.
Prerequisites
  • An active Xloud account with appropriate permissions
  • Access to the Xloud Dashboard (https://connect.<your-domain>) or CLI configured with credentials
  • API credentials sourced (source admin-openrc.sh)
Snapshotting a running instance captures disk state while the instance is live. For application consistency, quiesce the guest OS (flush writes, stop services, or pause the database) before initiating the snapshot to avoid capturing a partially-written state.

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Create a Snapshot

Locate the instance

Navigate to Project → Compute → Instances. Find the instance you want to snapshot.

Initiate the snapshot

In the instance row, open the Actions dropdown and select Create Snapshot.

Name the snapshot

Enter a descriptive snapshot name using a consistent convention, e.g.: <instance-name>-<date> (e.g., web-server-2026-03-18)Click Create Snapshot. The instance continues running during snapshot creation.

Monitor completion

Navigate to Project → Compute → Images to see the snapshot in progress.
The snapshot appears with status Active when complete. It is immediately available for launching new instances.

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Snapshot for Consistency

For production workloads, follow this pre-snapshot checklist to ensure data consistency:

Prepare the guest OS

SSH into the instance and run:
Flush filesystem buffers (Linux)
sync
For database servers, flush and lock tables before snapshotting:
MySQL/MariaDB: flush and lock
mysql -u root -e "FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK;"

Create the snapshot

Create snapshot immediately after flush
openstack server image create \
  --name db-primary-2026-03-18 \
  db-primary

Release locks after snapshot initiates

Once the snapshot command returns (the snapshot is queued in the backend), release any locks:
MySQL/MariaDB: release lock
mysql -u root -e "UNLOCK TABLES;"
The snapshot operation itself is fast (metadata only at initiation). The actual data copy happens in the background — you can release locks as soon as the CLI command returns.

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Manage Snapshots

Snapshots are regular images stored in the Image Service. Manage them using the same image commands: 
openstack image list \
  --property image_type=snapshot

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Launch from Snapshot

After a snapshot is active, launch new instances directly from it:
When creating a new instance, on the Source tab, select Instance Snapshot as the boot source type. The snapshot appears in the list of available sources.

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Next Steps

Image Properties

Add metadata and hardware requirements to your snapshots.

Share Images

Share snapshots with other projects in your organization.

Upload an Image

Upload external OS images alongside your captured snapshots.

Troubleshooting

Resolve snapshot creation failures and status issues.