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Two paragraphs containing local links were reformulated and rewrapped. Signed-off-by: Peter Krempa <pkrempa@redhat.com> Reviewed-by: Ján Tomko <jtomko@redhat.com>
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173 lines
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.. role:: since
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Checkpoint XML format
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=====================
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.. contents::
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Checkpoint XML
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--------------
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One method of capturing domain disk backups is via the use of incremental
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backups. Right now, incremental backups are only supported for the QEMU
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hypervisor when using qcow2 disks at the active layer; if other disk formats are
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in use, capturing disk backups requires different libvirt APIs (see `domain
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state capture <kbase/domainstatecapture.html>`__ for a comparison between APIs).
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Libvirt is able to facilitate incremental backups by tracking disk checkpoints,
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which are points in time against which it is easy to compute which portion of
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the disk has changed. Given a full backup (a backup created from the creation of
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the disk to a given point in time), coupled with the creation of a disk
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checkpoint at that time, and an incremental backup (a backup created from just
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the dirty portion of the disk between the first checkpoint and the second backup
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operation), it is possible to do an offline reconstruction of the state of the
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disk at the time of the second backup without having to copy as much data as a
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second full backup would require. Most disk checkpoints are created in
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conjunction with a backup via ``virDomainBackupBegin()``, although a future API
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addition of ``virDomainSnapshotCreateXML2()`` will also make this possible when
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creating external snapshots; however, libvirt also exposes enough support to
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create disk checkpoints independently from a backup operation via
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``virDomainCheckpointCreateXML()`` since 5.6.0. Likewise, the creation of
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checkpoints when external snapshots exist is currently forbidden, although
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future work will make it possible to integrate these two concepts.
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Attributes of libvirt checkpoints are stored as child elements of the
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``domaincheckpoint`` element. At checkpoint creation time, normally only the
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``name``, ``description``, and ``disks`` elements are settable. The rest of the
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fields are ignored on creation and will be filled in by libvirt in for
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informational purposes by ``virDomainCheckpointGetXMLDesc()``. However, when
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redefining a checkpoint, with the ``VIR_DOMAIN_CHECKPOINT_CREATE_REDEFINE`` flag
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of ``virDomainCheckpointCreateXML()``, all of the XML fields described here are
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relevant on input, even the fields that are normally described as readonly for
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output.
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The top-level ``domaincheckpoint`` element may contain the following elements:
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``name``
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The optional name for this checkpoint. If the name is omitted, libvirt will
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create a name based on the time of the creation.
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``description``
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An optional human-readable description of the checkpoint. If the description
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is omitted when initially creating the checkpoint, then this field will be
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empty.
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``disks``
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On input, this is an optional listing of specific instructions for disk
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checkpoints; it is needed when making a checkpoint on only a subset of the
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disks associated with a domain. In particular, since QEMU checkpoints require
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qcow2 disks, this element may be needed on input for excluding guest disks
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that are not in qcow2 format. If the entire element was omitted on input,
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then all disks participate in the checkpoint, otherwise, only the disks
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explicitly listed which do not also use ``checkpoint='no'`` will participate.
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On output, this is the checkpoint state of each of the domain's disks.
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``disk``
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This sub-element describes the checkpoint properties of a specific disk
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with the following attributes:
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``name``
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A mandatory attribute which must match either the
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``<target dev='name'/>`` or an unambiguous ``<source file='name'/>`` of
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one of the `disk devices <formatdomain.html#hard-drives-floppy-disks-cdroms>`__ specified
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for the domain at the time of the checkpoint.
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``checkpoint``
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An optional attribute; possible values are ``no`` when the disk does
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not participate in this checkpoint; or ``bitmap`` if the disk will
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track all changes since the creation of this checkpoint via a bitmap.
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``bitmap``
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The attribute ``bitmap`` is only valid if ``checkpoint='bitmap'``; it
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describes the name of the tracking bitmap (defaulting to the checkpoint
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name).
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``size``
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The attribute ``size`` is ignored on input; on output, it is only
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present if the ``VIR_DOMAIN_CHECKPOINT_XML_SIZE`` flag was used to
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perform a dynamic query of the estimated size in bytes of the changes
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made since the checkpoint was created.
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Note that updating the backup ``size`` may be expensive and
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the actual required size may increase if the guest OS is actively
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writing to the disk.
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``creationTime``
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A readonly representation of the time this checkpoint was created. The time
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is specified in seconds since the Epoch, UTC (i.e. Unix time).
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``parent``
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Readonly, present if this checkpoint has a parent. The parent name is given
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by the sub-element ``name``. The parent relationship allows tracking a list
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of related checkpoints.
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``domain``
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A readonly representation of the inactive `domain
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configuration <formatdomain.html>`__ at the time the checkpoint was created.
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This element may be omitted for output brevity by supplying the
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``VIR_DOMAIN_CHECKPOINT_XML_NO_DOMAIN`` flag. The domain will have
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security-sensitive information omitted unless the flag
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``VIR_DOMAIN_CHECKPOINT_XML_SECURE`` is provided on a read-write connection.
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``virDomainCheckpointCreateXML()`` requires that the ``<domain>`` is present
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when used with ``VIR_DOMAIN_CHECKPOINT_CREATE_REDEFINE``.
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:since:`Since 7.0.0` the ``<domain>`` element can be omitted when redefining
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a checkpoint, but hypervisors may not support certain operations if it's
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missing.
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Examples
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--------
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Using this XML to create a checkpoint of just vda on a qemu domain with two
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disks and a prior checkpoint:
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::
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<domaincheckpoint>
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<description>Completion of updates after OS install</description>
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<disks>
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<disk name='vda' checkpoint='bitmap'/>
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<disk name='vdb' checkpoint='no'/>
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</disks>
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</domaincheckpoint>
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will result in XML similar to this from ``virDomainCheckpointGetXMLDesc()``:
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::
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<domaincheckpoint>
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<name>1525889631</name>
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<description>Completion of updates after OS install</description>
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<parent>
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<name>1525111885</name>
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</parent>
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<creationTime>1525889631</creationTime>
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<disks>
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<disk name='vda' checkpoint='bitmap' bitmap='1525889631'/>
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<disk name='vdb' checkpoint='no'/>
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</disks>
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<domain type='qemu'>
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<name>fedora</name>
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<uuid>93a5c045-6457-2c09-e56c-927cdf34e178</uuid>
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<memory>1048576</memory>
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...
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<devices>
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<disk type='file' device='disk'>
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<driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'/>
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<source file='/path/to/file1'/>
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<target dev='vda' bus='virtio'/>
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</disk>
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<disk type='file' device='disk' snapshot='external'>
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<driver name='qemu' type='raw'/>
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<source file='/path/to/file2'/>
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<target dev='vdb' bus='virtio'/>
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</disk>
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...
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</devices>
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</domain>
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</domaincheckpoint>
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With that checkpoint created, the qcow2 image is now tracking all changes that
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occur in the image since the checkpoint via the persistent bitmap named
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``1525889631``.
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