Snapshots: Scheduling Snapshots with the QQ CLI

IN THIS ARTICLE

Outlines how to automatically take snapshots on a schedule using the QQ CLI

REQUIREMENTS

Qumulo Core 2.5.2 and above
Command line (CLI) tools installed via API & Tools tab

NOTE: Qumulo Core version 2.6.6 added UI support for creating, editing and deleting Snapshots. See Snapshots: Per-Directory Snapshots for reference.

DETAILS

Below is a list of commands that are available to create and manage snapshot policies:

Create a new snapshot scheduling policy

qq snapshot_create_policy

Delete a single scheduling policy

qq snapshot_delete_policy

List a single policy

qq snapshot_get_policy

List all policies

qq snapshot_list_policies

Modify an existing snapshot scheduling policy

qq snapshot_modify_policy

Each policy can specify the interval to take the snapshot (hourly_or_less, daily, or monthly) and the expiration rule. As an example, let’s create a new policy called “every_day" that takes a daily snapshot at midnight Pacific and keeps it for 7 days:

qq snapshot_create_policy daily --name every_day --time-to-live 7days 
--timezone America/Los_Angeles --days-of-week all --at 00:00

The command above will result in the following output:

{
 "id": 1,
 "name": "daily_1",
 "schedules": [
 {
 "creation_schedule": {
 "frequency": "SCHEDULE_DAILY_OR_WEEKLY",
 "hour": 0,
 "minute": 0,
 "on_days": [
 "SUN",
 "MON",
 "TUE",
 "WED",
 "THU",
 "FRI",
 "SAT"
 ],
 "timezone": "America/Los_Angeles"
 },
 "expiration_time_to_live": "7days",
 "id": 1
 }
 ],
 "source_file_ids": [
 "2"
 ]
}

Note that the time zone field uses a location description from the INIA database. If no time zone is specified, the snapshot schedule will be in UTC. Here’s some examples of valid time zones:

America/New_York
America/Chicago
America/Denver
America/Phoenix
America/Los_Angeles

Now let’s create an hourly policy, that is only triggered during business hours (Monday-Friday, 8am-6pm Pacific) where the snapshots are kept for 2 days.

qq snapshot_create_policy hourly_or_less --name hourly --timezone America/Los_Angeles 
--days-of-week MON,TUE,WED,THU,FRI --start-time 08:00 --end-time 18:00 --period 1hours 
--time-to-live 2days

Running the above command will result in the output below:

{
 "id": 5,
 "name": "Hourly",
 "schedules": [
 {
 "creation_schedule": {
 "fire_every": 1,
 "fire_every_interval": "FIRE_IN_HOURS",
 "frequency": "SCHEDULE_HOURLY_OR_LESS",
 "on_days": [
 "MON",
 "TUE",
 "WED",
 "THU",
 "FRI"
 ],
 "timezone": "America/Los_Angeles",
 "window_end_hour": 18,
 "window_end_minute": 0,
 "window_start_hour": 8,
 "window_start_minute": 0
 },
 "expiration_time_to_live": "2days",
 "id": 1
 }
 ],
 "source_file_ids": [
 "2"
 ]
}