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:

You have an account and are logged into the Scaleway Console
You have configured your SSH Key
You have generated your API key
You have downloaded and installed the Scaleway CLI v2

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.