Restore a VM Instance from a Snapshot

Learn how to restore an entire VM instance (server) from a snapshot

Reisbel Machado avatar
Written by Reisbel Machado
Updated over a week ago

The following steps describe how to restore a whole VM (server) from a snapshot. 

  1. Login to https://console.cloud.google.com and select the project the server belongs to. If you already have the snapshot available, move to the step 5. 

2. Go to Compute Engine from the main menu on the top left corner and select Snapshots

3. Click CREATE SNAPSHOT

4. Provide snapshot details and hit Create. Wait few minutes till the snapshot creatIon completes and follow the next step

5. Under the main menu in Compute Engine - VM Instances, delete the VM instance you will be restoring first (optional)

6. Then continue and create the VM instance from a disk. In the Compute Engine menu click on Disks and then click CREATE DISK

7. Name the disk the same as the server and add -1 to the end of the name, select the Zone where the server will be restored (needs to be the same zone the VM instance was deleted from), you can also select the type of disk, standard or SSD (changing the type will not reflect in CAS). Select the Source snapshot and click Create

8. Go to VM Instances in the Compute Engine menu and click on CREATE INSTANCE.  Select the same zone as the disk you created and click on Change under the Boot disk section and select the existing disk you just created from the snapshot, the click Select at the bottom of the screen.

9. Under Management, disks, networking, SSH keys, in the Management tab under Metadata, add the following:
   key = windows-startup-script-bat
   value = NetSh Advfirewall set allprofiles state off                         powershell -command "& {Enable-PsRemoting -Force; Enable-Wsmancredssp server -Force; Set-Item wsman:\localhost\client\trustedhosts * -Force; Enable-wsmancredssp -role client -delegatecomputer * -Force; Restart-Service WinRM}
   key = windows-startup-script-ps1
   value = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://us-central1-prod03-182421.cloudfunctions.net/register-instance/$env:ComputerName"

10. Under the Networking tak, in the Network tags field enter the following:
   cas-access
   winrm

11. While still under the Networking tab edit the Network Interfaces default and under External IP, the drop down menu will have an available public IP which belonged to the server that was recently deleted. Select that IP and click on Done. If restoring a domain controller, set IP forwarding to On, this option is not available after the VM instance is created.

12. Review the rest of the settings, scroll down and click Create

Done! Wait a few minutes for the VM instance to be created.

Please contact the itopia support team after such change so they can review all the management portal functionalities work properly after the restore.

If you only need to restore a disk form a server or a single file, check this guide:
How to restore from a Snapshot

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