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        <article role="main" id="furo-main-content">
          <section id="how-to-recover-instances-in-case-of-disaster">
<span id="disaster-recovery"></span><h1>How to recover instances in case of disaster<a class="headerlink" href="#how-to-recover-instances-in-case-of-disaster" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h1>

            <p class="youtube_link">
              <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJhTjhQYKJs&t=466s" target="_blank">
                <span title="LXD backup and disaster recovery" class="play_icon">▶</span>
                <span title="LXD backup and disaster recovery">Watch on YouTube</span>
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            </p>
        <p>LXD provides a tool for disaster recovery in case the <a class="reference internal" href="../../database/#database"><span class="std std-ref">LXD database</span></a> is corrupted or otherwise lost.</p>
<p>The tool scans the storage pools for instances and imports the instances, custom volumes and buckets that it finds back into the database.
You need to re-create the required entities that are missing (usually pools, profiles, projects, and networks).</p>
<div class="admonition important">
<p class="admonition-title">Important</p>
<p>This tool should be used for disaster recovery only.
Do not rely on this tool as an alternative to proper backups; you will lose data like profiles, network definitions, or server configuration.</p>
<p>The tool must be run interactively and cannot be used in automated scripts.</p>
</div>
<p>The tool is available through the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxd</span> <span class="pre">recover</span></code> command (note the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxd</span></code> command rather than the normal <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxc</span></code> command).</p>
<section id="recovery-process">
<h2>Recovery process<a class="headerlink" href="#recovery-process" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h2>
<p>When you run the tool, it scans all storage pools that still exist in the database, looking for missing volumes that can be recovered.
Any unknown storage pools (those that exist on disk but do not exist in the database) which are discovered whilst scanning existing and unknown volumes
are printed so they can be created manually using the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxc</span> <span class="pre">storage</span> <span class="pre">create</span> <span class="pre">...</span> <span class="pre">source.recover=true</span></code> command.
Concrete examples for each storage driver can be found in <a class="reference internal" href="../storage_pools/#storage-recover-pool"><span class="std std-ref">Recover a storage pool</span></a>.</p>
<p>After mounting the specified storage pools (if not already mounted), the tool scans them for unknown volumes that look like they are associated with LXD.
LXD maintains a <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">backup.yaml</span></code> file in each instance’s storage volume, which contains all necessary information to recover a given instance (including instance configuration, attached devices, storage volume, and pool configuration).
This data can be used to rebuild the instance, storage volume, attached custom volumes, and storage pool database records.
Before recovering an instance, the tool performs some consistency checks to compare what is in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">backup.yaml</span></code> file with what is actually on disk (such as matching snapshots).
If all checks out, the database records are re-created.</p>
<p>The tool asks you to re-create missing entities like networks.
However, the tool does not know how the instance was configured.
That means that if some configuration was specified through the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">default</span></code> profile, you must also re-add the required configuration to the profile.
For example, if the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxdbr0</span></code> bridge is used in an instance and you are prompted to re-create it, you must add it back to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">default</span></code> profile so that the recovered instance uses it.</p>
</section>
<section id="example">
<h2>Example<a class="headerlink" href="#example" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h2>
<p>This is how a recovery process could look.
We start by adding the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">default</span></code> pool we still know about. On this pool we expect an instance <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">v1</span></code> which might use volumes from others unknown pools:</p>
<div class="terminal docutils container">
<div class="input docutils container">
<div class="prompt docutils container">
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user&#64;host:~$</span> </code></div>
<span class="command"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxc</span> <span class="pre">storage</span> <span class="pre">create</span> <span class="pre">default</span> <span class="pre">zfs</span> <span class="pre">source=/dev/sdb</span> <span class="pre">zfs.pool_name=default</span> <span class="pre">source.recover=true</span>
</code></span></div>
<div class="terminal-code highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>Storage pool default created
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="terminal docutils container">
<div class="input docutils container">
<div class="prompt docutils container">
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user&#64;host:~$</span> </code></div>
<span class="command"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxd</span> <span class="pre">recover</span>
</code></span></div>
<div class="terminal-code highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>This LXD server currently has the following storage pools:
 - Pool &quot;default&quot; using driver &quot;zfs&quot;
Would you like to continue with scanning for lost volumes? (yes/no) [default=yes]:
Scanning for unknown volumes...
The following unknown volumes have been found:
 - Virtual-Machine &quot;v1&quot; on pool &quot;default&quot; in project &quot;default&quot; (includes 0 snapshots)
 - Volume &quot;vol1&quot; on pool &quot;backup&quot; in project &quot;default&quot; (includes 0 snapshots)
You are currently missing the following:
 - Pool &quot;backup&quot; using driver &quot;lvm&quot; (lvm.thinpool_name=&quot;LXDThinPool&quot; lvm.vg_name=&quot;backup&quot; source=&quot;backup&quot; volatile.initial_source=&quot;/dev/sdc&quot;)
Please create those missing entries and then hit ENTER:
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<p>The instance <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">v1</span></code> was discovered successfully.
It has an additional custom volume <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">vol1</span></code> attached from pool <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">backup</span></code> which isn’t yet known.
In another terminal create the missing pool after copying the pool’s configuration and adding the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">source.recover=true</span></code> configuration item:</p>
<div class="terminal docutils container">
<div class="input docutils container">
<div class="prompt docutils container">
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user&#64;host:~$</span> </code></div>
<span class="command"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxc</span> <span class="pre">storage</span> <span class="pre">create</span> <span class="pre">backup</span> <span class="pre">lvm</span> <span class="pre">lvm.thinpool_name=&quot;LXDThinPool&quot;</span> <span class="pre">lvm.vg_name=&quot;backup&quot;</span> <span class="pre">source=&quot;backup&quot;</span> <span class="pre">volatile.initial_source=&quot;/dev/sdc&quot;</span> <span class="pre">source.recover=true</span>
</code></span></div>
<div class="terminal-code highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>Storage pool backup created
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<p>Go back to the original terminal and hit ENTER:</p>
<div class="terminal docutils container">
<div class="input docutils container">
<div class="prompt docutils container">
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user&#64;host:~$</span> </code></div>
<span class="command"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxd</span> <span class="pre">recover</span>
</code></span></div>
<div class="terminal-code highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>...

This LXD server currently has the following storage pools:
 - Pool &quot;backup&quot; using driver &quot;lvm&quot;
 - Pool &quot;default&quot; using driver &quot;zfs&quot;
Would you like to continue with scanning for lost volumes? (yes/no) [default=yes]:
Scanning for unknown volumes...
The following unknown volumes have been found:
 - Container &quot;u1&quot; on pool &quot;backup&quot; in project &quot;default&quot; (includes 0 snapshots)
 - Container &quot;u2&quot; on pool &quot;backup&quot; in project &quot;default&quot; (includes 0 snapshots)
 - Volume &quot;vol1&quot; on pool &quot;backup&quot; in project &quot;default&quot; (includes 0 snapshots)
 - Virtual-Machine &quot;v1&quot; on pool &quot;default&quot; in project &quot;default&quot; (includes 0 snapshots)
You are currently missing the following:
 - Network &quot;lxdbr0&quot; in project &quot;default&quot;
Please create those missing entries and then hit ENTER:
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<p>As we are now scanning one additional pool, we were able to identify even more missing resources.
Create the missing network in another terminal:</p>
<div class="terminal docutils container">
<div class="input docutils container">
<div class="prompt docutils container">
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user&#64;host:~$</span> </code></div>
<span class="command"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxc</span> <span class="pre">network</span> <span class="pre">create</span> <span class="pre">lxdbr0</span>
</code></span></div>
<div class="terminal-code highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>Network lxdbr0 created
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<p>In the original terminal hit ENTER one last time:</p>
<div class="terminal docutils container">
<div class="input docutils container">
<div class="prompt docutils container">
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user&#64;host:~$</span> </code></div>
<span class="command"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxd</span> <span class="pre">recover</span>
</code></span></div>
<div class="terminal-code highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>...

This LXD server currently has the following storage pools:
 - Pool &quot;backup&quot; using driver &quot;lvm&quot;
 - Pool &quot;default&quot; using driver &quot;zfs&quot;
Would you like to continue with scanning for lost volumes? (yes/no) [default=yes]:
Scanning for unknown volumes...
The following unknown volumes have been found:
 - Volume &quot;vol1&quot; on pool &quot;backup&quot; in project &quot;default&quot; (includes 0 snapshots)
 - Container &quot;u1&quot; on pool &quot;backup&quot; in project &quot;default&quot; (includes 0 snapshots)
 - Container &quot;u2&quot; on pool &quot;backup&quot; in project &quot;default&quot; (includes 0 snapshots)
 - Virtual-Machine &quot;v1&quot; on pool &quot;default&quot; in project &quot;default&quot; (includes 0 snapshots)
Would you like those to be recovered? (yes/no) [default=no]: yes
Starting recovery...
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="terminal docutils container">
<div class="input docutils container">
<div class="prompt docutils container">
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user&#64;host:~$</span> </code></div>
<span class="command"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxc</span> <span class="pre">list</span>
</code></span></div>
<div class="terminal-code highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>+------+---------+------+------+-----------------+-----------+
| NAME |  STATE  | IPV4 | IPV6 |      TYPE       | SNAPSHOTS |
+------+---------+------+------+-----------------+-----------+
| u1   | STOPPED |      |      | CONTAINER       | 0         |
+------+---------+------+------+-----------------+-----------+
| u2   | STOPPED |      |      | CONTAINER       | 0         |
+------+---------+------+------+-----------------+-----------+
| v1   | STOPPED |      |      | VIRTUAL-MACHINE | 0         |
+------+---------+------+------+-----------------+-----------+
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="terminal docutils container">
<div class="input docutils container">
<div class="prompt docutils container">
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user&#64;host:~$</span> </code></div>
<span class="command"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxc</span> <span class="pre">profile</span> <span class="pre">device</span> <span class="pre">add</span> <span class="pre">default</span> <span class="pre">eth0</span> <span class="pre">nic</span> <span class="pre">network=lxdbr0</span> <span class="pre">name=eth0</span>
</code></span></div>
<div class="terminal-code highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>Device eth0 added to default
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="terminal docutils container">
<div class="input docutils container">
<div class="prompt docutils container">
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user&#64;host:~$</span> </code></div>
<span class="command"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxc</span> <span class="pre">start</span> <span class="pre">u1</span>
</code></span></div>
</div>
<div class="terminal docutils container">
<div class="input docutils container">
<div class="prompt docutils container">
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">user&#64;host:~$</span> </code></div>
<span class="command"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lxc</span> <span class="pre">list</span>
</code></span></div>
<div class="terminal-code highlight-text notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>+------+---------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------+
| NAME |  STATE  |         IPV4         |                     IPV6                      |      TYPE       | SNAPSHOTS |
+------+---------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------+
| u1   | RUNNING | 192.0.2.2 (eth0)     | 2001:db8:cff3:5089:216:3eff:fef0:549f (eth0)  | CONTAINER       | 0         |
+------+---------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------+
| u2   | STOPPED |                      |                                               | CONTAINER       | 0         |
+------+---------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------+
| v1   | STOPPED |                      |                                               | VIRTUAL-MACHINE | 0         |
+------+---------+----------------------+-----------------------------------------------+-----------------+-----------+
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
</section>
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<li><a class="reference internal" href="#">How to recover instances in case of disaster</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#recovery-process">Recovery process</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#example">Example</a></li>
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