Unix & Linux Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for users of Linux, FreeBSD and other Un*x-like operating systems. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Is it possible to save the state of a virtual machine under QEMU/KVM/libvirt (on x86-64) to disk like you can on vmware Player, that means:
If it is possible, would it need special drivers within the VM? Which one for Linux and Windows 7 guests?
The virt-manager window has a feature "shut down" -> "save".
Additional drivers are not required. I think the obvious bad thing happens with system time inside the guest. I don't know if there are guest drivers available to let the clock catch up.
/home/$USER/.config/libvirt/qemu/save which may be a link to a folder on a larger disk if needed.
– Ned64
Apr 24 '17 at 17:31
To achieve the same thing as VMmware's "Suspend" in virsh, do:
virsh managedsave <domain-name>
The machine can later be resumed with
virsh start <domain-name>
On my tested host (Ubuntu Server 14.04), the save file is stored at:
/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/save/<domain-name>.save
The Red Hat Virtualization Deployment and Administration Guide has a section on this, but if you don't have access then it wont be much help...
In a nutshell, what you are looking for is the virsh dompmsuspend command and option. The GUI utilities for KVM are okay but leave a LOT of functionality out. The virsh command can do anything you need it to, given the right options and parameters. I am not familiar with 'suspending' a KVM guest, so I can't really give you much guidance, but the documentation should have everything you need.
virt-manager for the moment but shall try this out in the beloved command line, as well.
– Ned64
Apr 24 '17 at 17:38
virshknows the commandssuspend,dompmsuspendandmanagedsavefor different tasks (see access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/…) – ridgy Apr 24 '17 at 17:13managedsaveis the one which meets these requirements – sourcejedi Apr 24 '17 at 17:23