Question
Snapshot w/o downtime
- Posted October 23, 2013
I have a 1gb droplet. I have automatic backups. I’d like to run a snapshot (to save a particular clean state), but I don’t want downtime (it’s my only production server).
One post says that for a 1gb server you don’t need to shut down, but I get: Droplet is currently on. Please power it off to run this event.
Is there another way? I could use rsnapshot, but can I do a full system restore from an rsnapshot image? (that would be better, because I could save it on my large NAS).
Thanks!
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Never thought of that, thanks! By chance, do you (or anyone else, for that matter) happen to have such a script – so I can share it on: <a href=“https://github.com/DigitalOcean-User-Projects”>DigitalOcean User Projects | GitHub</a>?
@Pablo: You can schedule it by setting up a cronjob that takes a snapshot of a droplet via the API.
You can’t create a snapshot without downtime or shutting off your droplet. The best you can do is like what @pablo said, schedule your snapshot when there are least traffic in your site.
Better yet, if you can afford, schedule a backup at your DO dashboard. Backups are pretty cheap anyway, $1 per month if you are running the 512MB droplet, or 10% of your droplet MSF.
Pablo, unfortunately I do not have such a script however it could just be a curl call to https://api.digitalocean.com with your API credentials.
@ross_rosen, <br> <br>You may also want to check out <a href=“https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-use-duplicity-with-gpg-to-securely-automate-backups-on-ubuntu”>How To Use Duplicity with GPG to Securely Automate Backups on Ubuntu</a>.
@Kamal, <br> <br>Is it possible to “schedule” a snapshot?
Unfortunately it’s not possible to take a snapshot of a droplet while it’s powered on.
Don’t you ever do any software upgrades and reboot your machine, anyways? That, too, would bring down your production site. I took a snapshot lastnight and it took a whopping 1 minute + 54 seconds – not much of a sacrifice in exchange for the piece of mind that I can quickly spin up a new droplet should my production site ever become compromised (or, the more likely scenario, should I break something). <br> <br>In the alternative, you could try an incremental, offsite backup w/either <code>rsync</code> or <code>duplicity</code>.
Thanks pablo. I guess that would be ok, but it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do (actually bring the production site down), and I figure there must be a way to do it live. I just need to find the way!
Why not schedule the snapshot for 2:00 AM on Saturday (or some other time whenever traffic is low)?