Snapshots

A snapshot is a machine's memory, disk and devices at one moment. Taking one pauses the machine briefly; it keeps running afterwards. A snapshot stays in ix storage and bills as disk for the bytes it does not share with your other machines.

The call returns the snapshot id once the snapshot can be restored.

Restore a snapshot as many times as you like. Each restore is a new machine that starts from the snapshot, and the original keeps running. The new machine shares the snapshot's bytes and writes its own changes beside them.

The new machine resumes where the original was at the snapshot: its memory and running processes come with it, as well as its disk.

On images that boot systemd, each restored machine gets its own machine ID; everything else on the disk, SSH host keys included, is the original's.

ix snapshot create build   # prints the snapshot id
ix snapshot ls build
ix new <snapshot-id> --name copy

A restore does not honor --env, --ipv4, --group or --cpus. The new machine takes the original's shape.