Can't snapshot UEFI VMs on new computer -- always been able to...

Cheeto · 2023-04-17 10:54:37

I've always been able to make snapshots of UEFI VMs on probably at least 30 VMs (see pics at bottom), both linux and windows, across 3 different physical machines. The only time I ever came across the notion that you can't do snapshots with UEFI was when I tried gnome-boxes, and I figured it was just a limitation of gnome-boxes. On that same machine, I did and still can make snapshots of my UEFI VMs in virt-manager.

As a test, I made a snapshot on a UEFI VM on the old computer, then imported it to the new computer and tried and it gives the pflash error.

Here are some pictures showing UEFI VMs with snapshots: https://imgur.com/a/kpShGo5

Last edited by Cheeto (2023-04-17 11:05:11)

SimpleTechGuy · 2023-04-17 17:59:27

I've got the same issue. Everything was working as of yesterday on libvirt 9.1. Did updates today and libvirt was updated to v9.2 and now snapshots not working. libvirt and libvirt-python were updated, as well as several qemu-... applications. I'm holding off on updating other machines for now.

I tried reverting libvirt and libvirt-python back to 9.1, but it didn't work. Was thinking about restoring a snapshot following this https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_L … cific_date, but never done that before and don't want to mess anything up.

Here is the message i'm getting from virt-manager:

Error creating snapshot: Operation not supported: internal snapshots of a VM with pflash based firmware are not supported

Last edited by SimpleTechGuy (2023-04-17 18:03:32)

SimpleTechGuy · 2023-04-17 18:14:48

Found the issue, looks like it is due to the upgrade of libvirt9.2...

https://gitlab.com/libvirt/libvirt/-/issues/460

Cheeto · 2023-04-17 18:52:12

The whole discussion around whether you can create snapshots with UEFI VMs is insane. Every documentation I can find from redhat and fedora and every corner of the internet says it's not possible, it just doesn't work we promise, trust us--but it literally worked. Ugh..........

Regarding snapshots, I've been learning btrfs for the last couple weeks and I would say do this:

sudo snapper undochange #..##

where # is the number of a snapshot you took before upgrading the package and ## is the number of a snapshot you've taken since upgrading the package

The command will revert the files in your system to how they were when you made snapshot #. The thing to be aware of is that if you have subvolumes on the root subvolume, they will not be reverted.

So for example if you do `sudo btrfs subv list /` and see something like this:

ID 256 gen 3028 top level 5 path @
ID 258 gen 3024 top level 5 path @log
ID 259 gen 1120 top level 5 path @pkg
ID 260 gen 2936 top level 5 path @.snapshots
ID 261 gen 21 top level 256 path var/lib/portables
ID 262 gen 22 top level 256 path var/lib/machines
ID 264 gen 135 top level 260 path @.snapshots/1/snapshot

Then you'll know that @log, @pkg, @.snapshots and @.snapshots/1/snapshot won't be reverted, but everything else in the root tree will be.

It's non-destructive, so if you don't like how it turned out, run the reverse command:

sudo snapper undochange ##..#

SimpleTechGuy · 2023-04-17 21:00:34

Cheeto wrote:

Regarding snapshots, I've been learning btrfs for the last couple weeks and I would say do this:

Thanks for the info!

Arch Linux

#1 2023-04-17 10:54:37

Can't snapshot UEFI VMs on new computer -- always been able to...

#2 2023-04-17 17:59:27

Re: Can't snapshot UEFI VMs on new computer -- always been able to...

#3 2023-04-17 18:14:48

Re: Can't snapshot UEFI VMs on new computer -- always been able to...

#4 2023-04-17 18:52:12

Re: Can't snapshot UEFI VMs on new computer -- always been able to...

#5 2023-04-17 21:00:34

Re: Can't snapshot UEFI VMs on new computer -- always been able to...

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