Creating and Copying Snapshots

You can manually create a snapshot of an existing boot environment for your reference. This snapshot is a read-only image of a dataset or boot environment at a given point in time. You can create a custom name for the snapshot that indicates when the snapshot was created or what it contains. You can then copy that snapshot.

Creating a Snapshot of a Boot Environment

The following command creates a snapshot of the existing boot environment named BeName.

Syntax: beadm create BeName@snapshotdescription

The snapshot name must use the format, BeName@snapshotdescription, where BeName is the name of an existing boot environment that you want to make a snapshot from. Provide a custom snapshot description to identify the date or purpose of the snapshot.

Some snapshot names are:

• BE1@0312200.12:15pm

• BE2@backup

• BE1@march132008

Unless you use the beadm create command to assign a custom title to a snapshot, titles for snapshots automatically include a timestamp that indicates when the snapshot was taken.

Creating a Boot Environment From an Existing Snapshot

A snapshot of a boot environment is not bootable. However, you can create a new boot environment from an existing snapshot. Then you can activate and boot that new boot environment.

How to Create a Boot Environment From a Snapshot

1. Become the root role.
2. Create a new boot environment from a snapshot.

   # beadm create -e BEname@snapshotdescription BeName

   Replace the variable, BEname@snapshotdescription, with the name of an existing snapshot. Replace the variable, BEname, with a custom name for your new boot environment.

   For example:

   # beadm create -e BE1@now BE2

   This command creates a new boot environment, named BE2, from the existing snapshot named BE1@now.

   As a next step, you could active this new boot environment. See Changing the Default Boot Environment.