Is there any easy way to boot a droplet from an existing volume instead of a boot image?
I’d like to be able to spin up a machine and tear it down again - and maintain all the installed packages without having to re-install from apt each time.
I don’t necessarily want a custom image for this, as I want the whole disk context to be persistent (while the actual droplet can be destroyed)
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Hello @kieranbingham ,
You can take a Snapshot of the Droplet. Creating a snapshot saves everything from the Droplet or volume’s disk to a disk image saved in your DigitalOcean account. Snapshots persist on your account even after the Droplet is destroyed. You will be able to create a new Droplet from the Snapshot anytime. Please refer to the following articles for more details https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/images/snapshots/ https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/images/snapshots/how-to/
Hope this helps!
Cheers, Lalitha
Hi,
@kieranbingham wroteDoesn’t using snapshots mean that I would then have to take another snapshot
after having done any ‘work’ on the image?
Yes, it does. You would have to take a snapshot each time before destroying your droplet, otherwise you loose your recent changes. You could simplify ‘taking a snapshot/destroying a droplet’ process with a script based on DO API.
But, have you considered chrooting ? You could install an OS on an attached block storage volume using a tool like debootstrap, and then, chroot to this environment from a droplet’s OS. In that case, all the changes will remain on the attached volume.
Note.
The solution mentioned by @Lalitha has got (at least) one advantage over chrooting.
You can move a snapshot to another region and spin up a new droplet there. You cannot
do that with a volume.
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