mirror of
https://gitlab.com/libvirt/libvirt.git
synced 2024-11-08 22:39:56 +00:00
eafd3b3a21
Data is valid only when queried as guest writes may increase the backup size. Signed-off-by: Peter Krempa <pkrempa@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>
167 lines
7.1 KiB
ReStructuredText
167 lines
7.1 KiB
ReStructuredText
Checkpoint XML format
|
|
=====================
|
|
|
|
.. contents::
|
|
|
|
Checkpoint XML
|
|
--------------
|
|
|
|
One method of capturing domain disk backups is via the use of incremental
|
|
backups. Right now, incremental backups are only supported for the QEMU
|
|
hypervisor when using qcow2 disks at the active layer; if other disk formats are
|
|
in use, capturing disk backups requires different libvirt APIs (see `domain
|
|
state capture <kbase/domainstatecapture.html>`__ for a comparison between APIs).
|
|
|
|
Libvirt is able to facilitate incremental backups by tracking disk checkpoints,
|
|
which are points in time against which it is easy to compute which portion of
|
|
the disk has changed. Given a full backup (a backup created from the creation of
|
|
the disk to a given point in time), coupled with the creation of a disk
|
|
checkpoint at that time, and an incremental backup (a backup created from just
|
|
the dirty portion of the disk between the first checkpoint and the second backup
|
|
operation), it is possible to do an offline reconstruction of the state of the
|
|
disk at the time of the second backup without having to copy as much data as a
|
|
second full backup would require. Most disk checkpoints are created in
|
|
conjunction with a backup via ``virDomainBackupBegin()``, although a future API
|
|
addition of ``virDomainSnapshotCreateXML2()`` will also make this possible when
|
|
creating external snapshots; however, libvirt also exposes enough support to
|
|
create disk checkpoints independently from a backup operation via
|
|
``virDomainCheckpointCreateXML()`` since 5.6.0. Likewise, the creation of
|
|
checkpoints when external snapshots exist is currently forbidden, although
|
|
future work will make it possible to integrate these two concepts.
|
|
|
|
Attributes of libvirt checkpoints are stored as child elements of the
|
|
``domaincheckpoint`` element. At checkpoint creation time, normally only the
|
|
``name``, ``description``, and ``disks`` elements are settable. The rest of the
|
|
fields are ignored on creation and will be filled in by libvirt in for
|
|
informational purposes by ``virDomainCheckpointGetXMLDesc()``. However, when
|
|
redefining a checkpoint, with the ``VIR_DOMAIN_CHECKPOINT_CREATE_REDEFINE`` flag
|
|
of ``virDomainCheckpointCreateXML()``, all of the XML fields described here are
|
|
relevant on input, even the fields that are normally described as readonly for
|
|
output.
|
|
|
|
The top-level ``domaincheckpoint`` element may contain the following elements:
|
|
|
|
``name``
|
|
The optional name for this checkpoint. If the name is omitted, libvirt will
|
|
create a name based on the time of the creation.
|
|
|
|
``description``
|
|
An optional human-readable description of the checkpoint. If the description
|
|
is omitted when initially creating the checkpoint, then this field will be
|
|
empty.
|
|
|
|
``disks``
|
|
On input, this is an optional listing of specific instructions for disk
|
|
checkpoints; it is needed when making a checkpoint on only a subset of the
|
|
disks associated with a domain. In particular, since QEMU checkpoints require
|
|
qcow2 disks, this element may be needed on input for excluding guest disks
|
|
that are not in qcow2 format. If the entire element was omitted on input,
|
|
then all disks participate in the checkpoint, otherwise, only the disks
|
|
explicitly listed which do not also use ``checkpoint='no'`` will participate.
|
|
On output, this is the checkpoint state of each of the domain's disks.
|
|
|
|
``disk``
|
|
This sub-element describes the checkpoint properties of a specific disk
|
|
with the following attributes:
|
|
|
|
``name``
|
|
A mandatory attribute which must match either the
|
|
``<target dev='name'/>`` or an unambiguous ``<source file='name'/>`` of
|
|
one of the `disk devices <formatdomain.html#elementsDisks>`__ specified
|
|
for the domain at the time of the checkpoint.
|
|
|
|
``checkpoint``
|
|
An optional attribute; possible values are ``no`` when the disk does
|
|
not participate in this checkpoint; or ``bitmap`` if the disk will
|
|
track all changes since the creation of this checkpoint via a bitmap.
|
|
|
|
``bitmap``
|
|
The attribute ``bitmap`` is only valid if ``checkpoint='bitmap'``; it
|
|
describes the name of the tracking bitmap (defaulting to the checkpoint
|
|
name).
|
|
|
|
``size``
|
|
The attribute ``size`` is ignored on input; on output, it is only
|
|
present if the ``VIR_DOMAIN_CHECKPOINT_XML_SIZE`` flag was used to
|
|
perform a dynamic query of the estimated size in bytes of the changes
|
|
made since the checkpoint was created.
|
|
|
|
Note that updating the backup ``size`` may be expensive and
|
|
the actual required size may increase if the guest OS is actively
|
|
writing to the disk.
|
|
|
|
``creationTime``
|
|
A readonly representation of the time this checkpoint was created. The time
|
|
is specified in seconds since the Epoch, UTC (i.e. Unix time).
|
|
|
|
``parent``
|
|
Readonly, present if this checkpoint has a parent. The parent name is given
|
|
by the sub-element ``name``. The parent relationship allows tracking a list
|
|
of related checkpoints.
|
|
|
|
``domain``
|
|
A readonly representation of the inactive `domain
|
|
configuration <formatdomain.html>`__ at the time the checkpoint was created.
|
|
This element may be omitted for output brevity by supplying the
|
|
``VIR_DOMAIN_CHECKPOINT_XML_NO_DOMAIN`` flag, but the resulting XML is no
|
|
longer viable for use with the ``VIR_DOMAIN_CHECKPOINT_CREATE_REDEFINE`` flag
|
|
of ``virDomainCheckpointCreateXML()``. The domain will have
|
|
security-sensitive information omitted unless the flag
|
|
``VIR_DOMAIN_CHECKPOINT_XML_SECURE`` is provided on a read-write connection.
|
|
|
|
Examples
|
|
--------
|
|
|
|
Using this XML to create a checkpoint of just vda on a qemu domain with two
|
|
disks and a prior checkpoint:
|
|
|
|
::
|
|
|
|
<domaincheckpoint>
|
|
<description>Completion of updates after OS install</description>
|
|
<disks>
|
|
<disk name='vda' checkpoint='bitmap'/>
|
|
<disk name='vdb' checkpoint='no'/>
|
|
</disks>
|
|
</domaincheckpoint>
|
|
|
|
will result in XML similar to this from ``virDomainCheckpointGetXMLDesc()``:
|
|
|
|
::
|
|
|
|
<domaincheckpoint>
|
|
<name>1525889631</name>
|
|
<description>Completion of updates after OS install</description>
|
|
<parent>
|
|
<name>1525111885</name>
|
|
</parent>
|
|
<creationTime>1525889631</creationTime>
|
|
<disks>
|
|
<disk name='vda' checkpoint='bitmap' bitmap='1525889631'/>
|
|
<disk name='vdb' checkpoint='no'/>
|
|
</disks>
|
|
<domain type='qemu'>
|
|
<name>fedora</name>
|
|
<uuid>93a5c045-6457-2c09-e56c-927cdf34e178</uuid>
|
|
<memory>1048576</memory>
|
|
...
|
|
<devices>
|
|
<disk type='file' device='disk'>
|
|
<driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'/>
|
|
<source file='/path/to/file1'/>
|
|
<target dev='vda' bus='virtio'/>
|
|
</disk>
|
|
<disk type='file' device='disk' snapshot='external'>
|
|
<driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
|
|
<source file='/path/to/file2'/>
|
|
<target dev='vdb' bus='virtio'/>
|
|
</disk>
|
|
...
|
|
</devices>
|
|
</domain>
|
|
</domaincheckpoint>
|
|
|
|
With that checkpoint created, the qcow2 image is now tracking all changes that
|
|
occur in the image since the checkpoint via the persistent bitmap named
|
|
``1525889631``.
|