Happy snaps
Keeping your guests safe.
Even though a virtual machine isn’t a real computer with physical value, the data that’s on it can still be real and have some value. So it can be as important to be able to back up your virtual computers as the host. You could run a backup program on the guest, but there’s another option: make use of snapshots.
A snapshot is a view of your VM at a moment in time, which means you can roll back to that point when needed – for example, after an upgrade that breaks something. Importantly, snapshots can be taken while the VM is running. Taking a snapshot can be near instant, making it an easy way to keep safe. So how do the various programs handle this?
Gnome Boxes has a snapshots tab where you can create a new one or revert to a previous snapshot. It conveniently creates an initial snapshot for a newly installed VM, something none of the other do, but it makes it easy to get back to a freshly installed state. Aqemu is similarly simple to work with. Snapshots are managed from a control window, although it only allows snapshots of running machines. Virt-manager enables you to manage snapshots of running and stopped guests, and even include screenshots of snapshots. VirtualBox also allows snapshots of running and stopped guests. It also makes it possible for you to clone a VM from a snapshot. VMware Workstation Player has no snapshot facility. What it does have, in common with the others, is the ability to suspend the guest OS, which would enable a quick restart or even the option to copy the VM to another computer.