Creation and management of Snapshots in SENET Boot Admin

Table of contents:

• General information
• Video Setup Guide
• Snapshots creation
• Snapshots management

General information

Snapshots enable you to capture the current system's state with all the recent changes and, if necessary, roll back to the previous image. 

Snapshots serve as a safety net, allowing you to revert any changes made to the image at any time without losing the other saved progress. For instance, if recent changes to the image are faulty or cause malfunctions, you can easily revert these changes without needing to recreate the image or use backups.

Important! Snapshots can only be created via Senet Boot Admin locally on the server PC. You cannot save an image as a snapshot from CAP. Snapshots are created solely for the system's image drive whereas content drives do not support this functionality. 

Video Setup Guide

How to create Snapshots?

• Run the superuser mode on one of the PCs. Click on the icon to disable it as soon as you have made all the necessary changes.
• Specify which changes you want to save on the server.
• Upon saving changes in superuser mode, you’ll be prompted to save these changes as a snapshot. 
• Check the box to create a system snapshot and click Save.

• After saving, the system automatically creates a copy of the image in the storage folder.

🔎Snapshots form a chain of data, marked from the first to the latest. You cannot delete any snapshot in the middle of the chain. Snapshots should be deleted from the latest to the earliest in case of reverting changes. For example, if you have 10 snapshots, you cannot delete the 7th snapshot as all subsequent snapshots (8th, 9th, and 10th) will not function at all due to missing data from the 7th snapshot.

Therefore, if you need to revert changes, keep in mind that you’ll need to delete snapshots starting from the latest.

How to manage Snapshots?

Managing snapshots consists of two main steps:

1. Merge all snapshots

This merges all snapshots of the image with the main image. The process checks for duplicated data within each snapshot and removes these duplications, freeing up space. It is advisable to merge snapshots when there are up to 10 snapshots. Note that merging should be done when there are no active client sessions, as it takes time. Only merge snapshots after verifying that everything works fine with them.

2. Delete a snapshot

This action deletes a specific snapshot to revert changes.

To work with Snapshots:

• Open the local SENET Boot Admin panel and go to the SENET Boot Settings → Images.
• Choose a snapshot you want to merge or delete.

Important! Please be aware that once snapshots are merged or deleted, these actions cannot be undone.

To merge:

• Click on the merge icon (1) and confirm the action.

To delete:

• Click on the basket icon (2) and confirm the action.

• After removal, Snapshot will no longer be displayed in the SENET Boot Admin panel and the folder on the local server.

📌 It is advisable that you create backups of your image. Simply copy the image file to another folder. This way, if needed, you can move the backup back and use it.