How to Use Snapshots of VMs in Proxmox

Explains how to create snapshots of VMs in Proxmox, plus how to rollback to them and delete them.

Snapshots are like save states for your VMs. If you do something that breaks your VMs, snapshots let you restore the VMs to their previous states before they were broken.

This article explains how to manage snapshots for VMs in Proxmox.

 

1. Prerequisite Information

To access your VMs, please see this article for details.

When using snapshots, please make sure you abide by the following rules:

1. To conserve space on the Proxmox cluster, please limit VMs to a maximum of 5 snapshots if possible.
2. You should always keep your Day1 snapshot; do not ever delete it.
3. If you are using your VM for the first time and no Day1 snaphsot is present, create one before turning your VM on.

 

2. Taking a Snapshot

Before you take a snapshot of your VM, turn it off by right-clicking it and pressing Stop.

• NOTE: Snapshots taken when a VM is running may fail to complete rollback, making them effectively useless.
  • Furthermore, snapshots taken when a VM is running are significantly more storage-intensive.

Once the VM is powered off, click on Snapshots from the menu on the left. On the resulting screen, press Take Snapshot.

In the resulting window, give it an appropriate name and description, then press Take Snapshot.

 

3. Rolling Back to a Snapshot

To roll back a VM to a snapshot, please follow these steps:

1. In Proxmox, click on the VM you want to rollback to a snapshot.
2. Select the Snapshots page for the VM.
3. Click on the snapshot you want to use.
4. Press the Rollback button.
5. Press Yes to confirm the rollback.

 

4. Deleting a Snapshot

To delete a snapshot, please follow these steps:

1. In Proxmox, click on the VM you want to rollback to a snapshot.
2. Select the Snapshots page for the VM.
3. Click on the snapshot you want to delete.
4. Press the Remove button.
5. Press Yes to confirm the deletion.