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How to restore a VM or a disk

This guide restores a virtual machine, or a deleted disk, from an archive, from the Hikube console.

Prerequisites​

  • A Ready and restorable archive of the VM or the disk (see Manage archives).

What you need to know​

  • A VM or a disk is restored onto itself, never onto another resource.
  • A VM's archive contains all its disks, and the restore rewrites them all. It is not possible to restore only one.
  • A disk backed up on its own is not restored onto itself while it exists. To return an attached disk to an earlier state, restore an archive of the VM it is attached to. A disk's archive is used to recreate it if it has been deleted.
  • The VM is stopped during the restore: plan for a service interruption.

Restore a VM​

  1. Open VM Instances, the VM, then its Backups tab. You can also start from Backups > Archives.

  2. On the archive's row, click Restore.

  3. Choose what happens to This machine's current disks:

    ChoiceEffect
    Discard them (default)Each disk takes back the content of the archive; what it held until then is deleted once the restore has succeeded.
    Keep themEach disk takes back the content of the archive; what it held until then becomes a separate disk, named <disk>-orig-<identifier>, detached, billed until you delete it.

  4. Type the name of the VM to confirm, then click Restore.

When to keep the old disks

Choose Keep them if you are not sure the archive is the right one: you will be able to attach an old disk to a VM to recover files from it. Remember to delete it afterwards from Disks.

Recreate a deleted VM or disk​

If the VM or the disk has been deleted, the console says so (“…” was deleted: it will be recreated from this archive.). The restore recreates the resource under its original name.

For a deleted VM some of whose disks survived, the choice applies to The disks that outlived this machine.

If a new VM or disk now bears the same name, created after the backup, the restore is refused: it would replace the data of another resource. First delete this resource, then restore. The same applies if one of the disks contained in a VM's archive has been deleted then recreated since the backup.

Track the restore​

  • The Restores section of the Backups tab shows the status, the percentage of data transferred and what happens to the original disks (Original disks deleted if the restore succeeds, Original disks kept…).
  • Before moving to Succeeded, the restore checks that each disk of the archive has indeed been rewritten; it remains In progress during these few seconds.
  • A restore that fails, or that you cancel, deletes nothing, even with Discard them: the old disks are kept under the name <disk>-orig-<identifier>, and the message says so (Original disks kept: the restore did not succeed). Running the restore again may succeed.
  • A VM restore does not stop on its own if it gets stuck: you can cancel it (see Cancel a backup or a restore).

Verification​

  • The restore is Succeeded.
  • Start the VM if it is stopped, connect to it and check your data.
  • With Keep them, the <disk>-orig-<identifier> disks appear in Disks, not attached.

Further reading​