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Managing Instance snapshots with the CLI (v2)
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Managing Instance snapshots with the CLI (v2)

Reviewed on 27 March 2023 • Published on 24 September 2022

You can use the Scaleway CLI to create, export and import snapshots of your Instances. A snapshot is a QCOW2 image of your Instance’s volumes, stored in a Scaleway Object Storage bucket. It can be imported into any Availability Zone, as long as it is in the same region as the bucket in which it is hosted.

Security & Identity (IAM):

You may need certain IAM permissions to carry out some actions described on this page. This means:

  • you are the Owner of the Scaleway Organization in which the actions will be carried out, or
  • you are an IAM user of the Organization, with a policy granting you the necessary permission sets
Requirements:

Creating a snapshot using the CLI

To create a snapshot from a volume using the CLI, run the following command:

scw instance snapshot create [arg=value ...]

The following arguments and flags are available to customize your command:

ARGS:
[name=<generated>] Name of the snapshot
[volume-id] UUID of the volume
[unified] Whether a snapshot is unified or not.
[tags.{index}] The tags of the snapshot
[project-id] Project ID to use. If none is passed the default project ID will be used
[bucket] Bucket name for snapshot imports
[key] Object key for snapshot imports
[size] Imported snapshot size, must be a multiple of 512
[organization-id] Organization ID to use. If none is passed the default organization ID will be used
[zone=fr-par-1] Zone to target. If none is passed will use default zone from the config (fr-par-1 | fr-par-2 | fr-par-3 | nl-ams-1 | nl-ams-2 | pl-waw-1)
FLAGS:
-h, --help help for create
-w, --wait wait until the snapshot is ready
GLOBAL FLAGS:
-c, --config string The path to the config file
-D, --debug Enable debug mode
-o, --output string Output format: json or human, see 'scw help output' for more info (default "human")
-p, --profile string The config profile to use

Creating a snapshot in the default zone from the given volume ID

To create a snapshot in the default zone from the given volume ID, run the following command. Remember to replace 11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111 with the actual ID of your volume.

scw instance snapshot create volume-id=11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111

Creating a snapshot in a specific zone from the given volume ID

To create a snapshot in a specific zone (e.g. fr-par-1) from the given volume ID, run the following command. Remember to replace 11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111 with the actual ID of your volume.

scw instance snapshot create zone=fr-par-1 volume-id=11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111

Creating a named snapshot in the default zone from a given volume ID

Run the following command to create a named snapshot from the given volume ID. Remember to replace 11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111 with the actual ID of your volume.

scw instance snapshot create name=foobar volume-id=11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111

Importing a QCOW file from an Object Storage bucket as Instance snapshot

Run the following command to import a QCOW file as an Instance snapshot. Replace the bucket name my-bucket with the name of your Object Storage bucket and the file name qcow2-file-name.qcow2 with the name of your QCOW file.

scw instance snapshot create zone=fr-par-1 name=my-imported-snapshot volume-type=unified bucket=my-bucket key=my-qcow2-file-name.qcow
Important:

When importing existing QCOW / QCOW2 files from Object Storage as Instance snapshots, make sure that the file has the suffix .qcow or .qcow2.