Cloud Servers
Cloud Server Snapshots
A snapshot is a copy of your server's entire disk at one moment in time, and rolling back to one returns the whole machine to exactly that state, which makes it the fastest way to undo a change that went wrong.
Snapshots sit alongside your daily offsite backups rather than replacing them. Backups protect your data over weeks. Snapshots are the thing you take five minutes before you do something risky, and the thing you fall back to five minutes later when it does not work.
How Snapshots Are Created
There are two kinds, and the list labels each one:
| Type | Created by | When |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-patch | Automatically | Before every OS security patch run |
| Manual | You | On demand, whenever you want a restore point |
Pre-patch snapshots are what make automatic patching safe. Before the platform applies operating system updates it snapshots the disk, and if the server does not come back after a reboot the patch run is rolled back automatically. You do not have to ask for this, and you do not have to watch it happen.
Taking a Manual Snapshot
- Sign in to KPanel.
- Click Cloud Servers in the left sidebar, then click your server.
- Scroll to the Snapshots card.
- Click Take snapshot.
- The new snapshot appears with the status Creating, and changes to Ready when it is usable.
The direct address is /cloud-servers/<server-id>. The card lists your most recent snapshots, newest first, with the type, the size in GB, and the date and time it was taken.
The Snapshots card only appears while the server is running. Power the server on if you do not see it.
When to Take One
Take a manual snapshot immediately before:
- Installing or upgrading a major piece of software: a database engine, a web server, a language runtime.
- Changing configuration you do not fully understand yet.
- Running a schema migration or a bulk data operation.
- Any change where "put it back the way it was" would otherwise mean rebuilding the server by hand.
Take the snapshot, then make one change, then check. A snapshot taken before a batch of five changes only tells you that something in the batch broke. A snapshot per change tells you which one.
Rolling Back to a Snapshot
- Find the snapshot you want in the Snapshots card. It must show the status Ready.
- Click Roll back on that row.
- Read the confirmation: "This reverts the entire server disk to the snapshot state. Anything written since will be lost. The server reboots during rollback."
- Click Roll back to go ahead.
A rollback cannot be undone, and it is total. Every file, database row, log line, package and configuration change written since that snapshot was taken disappears. If there is anything on the server you want to keep from after the snapshot, copy it off the server first.
The server reboots as part of the rollback, so expect a short outage. When it comes back it is byte-for-byte the machine you snapshotted, including its operating system, installed packages, services, firewall rules and data.
Rolling back a database server rolls the database back too. If your application accepted orders, signups or payments after the snapshot was taken, those records are gone. On anything transactional, export the recent data before you roll back, or restore from a backup instead, which puts files back without a reboot.
Snapshots Compared With Backups
The two safety nets solve different problems, and using only one of them leaves a real gap.
| Snapshots | Backups | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it is kept | Alongside the platform your server runs on | Encrypted offsite storage |
| Schedule | On demand, plus automatically before every patch run | Daily, automatic |
| Retention | Kept until you no longer need them | 30 days |
| What it restores | The entire disk, exactly as it was | Files, databases and configuration, in place |
| Server during recovery | Reboots | Stays online |
| Recovery speed | Fast, whole machine | Slower, but selective |
| Best for | Undoing a change you just made | Recovering from a problem you noticed later |
A useful rule: if the thing you want to undo happened in the last hour and you took a snapshot first, roll back. If it happened days ago, or you only need the data and not the machine, restore from a backup. Cloud Server Backups covers that path.
Snapshots and Automatic Patching
Automatic OS patching is snapshot-protected by design. On the server's Management page, the OS auto-patching section describes it as: "Security updates applied automatically. Snapshot-protected: a server snapshot is taken before each run, with automatic rollback if the server becomes unreachable after reboot."
If you start a patch run yourself with Run patch now, you get the same protection, and the confirmation says so: "A snapshot is created first. The server stays online except for a brief reboot if a kernel update needs it." See Cloud Server Firewall and Security Management for the rest of that page.
Troubleshooting
"No snapshots yet. Pre-patch snapshots are taken automatically." Nothing has triggered one on this server yet. Take a manual snapshot, or wait for the next patch run.
A snapshot is stuck on Creating. Large disks take longer, especially the first time. Reload the page after a few minutes. If it has not moved after an hour, contact support with the server name.
The Roll back button is missing. Rollback is only offered on a snapshot with the status Ready. One that is still creating, or that failed, cannot be used.
"Rollback failed." The rollback did not start. Confirm the server is not mid-resize or mid-rebuild, then try again.
I rolled back and lost work. There is no way to reverse a rollback. This is why the confirmation is worded the way it is. If you have a backup taken after that snapshot, restoring it may recover your files.
If you need a snapshot preserved for longer than usual, or you are planning a change you want a second pair of eyes on, email support@kapsulehost.com before you start rather than afterwards.