Snapshots and backups

How many snapshots and backups you can keep depends on your plan: you see it next to the title of each box (e.g. "1/2").

Snapshots

A snapshot is an instant picture of the disk, stored on the same server. It is perfect before an upgrade or a risky change.

• Take a snapshot, and name it if you like (e.g. "before the upgrade").
• Restore: the VPS shuts down, the disk goes back to the moment of the snapshot and the VPS starts again. Anything written after it is lost.
• Delete the snapshots you no longer need to take new ones.

Snapshots live on the same server as the VPS: they do not protect against a server failure. That is what backups are for.

Backups

A backup is a copy of the VPS stored in another place, never on the same server. The first one is complete; later ones usually save only what changed, so they are much faster. Every backup still restores in full.

• If your plan includes them, backups run automatically at night (every night or once a week): the box says when and how many are kept. The oldest is deleted automatically.
• Back up now makes one right away (at most one per hour).
• Restore brings the whole VPS back to the moment of the backup; IP addresses and resources stay as they are now. Snapshots are not part of the backup.

If the VPS has extra disks, snapshots and backups include them too.

During backups and restores the page shows the progress. A restore takes a few minutes and the VPS stays off until it is done.

Getting single files back from a backup

Deleted a file or a folder? You do not need to restore the whole VPS: next to a backup, Browse files prepares a copy of that backup's disk and mounts it read-only inside your VPS (for example at /mnt/koavm-backup-20261014-0305/part1; only root can open the folder). A large disk takes a few minutes.

Then, in the Files from the backup card, you move through the folders and for each file or folder you choose:

• Download: the file goes to your computer (up to 2 GB; restore larger files into the VPS and download them with SFTP);
• Restore: puts it back into the VPS, next to it with a new name (for example nginx.conf.backup-20261014-0305, the current one is not touched) or in its place (overwrites: you have to confirm). A folder restored in its place is merged with the existing one: the backup files replace the ones with the same name, the others stay. The restore does not follow symbolic links in the VPS owned by a user other than root (for example a .bashrc pointing to a system file): in that case it stops and asks you to put the file back by hand.

You also find the copy with SSH in the folder shown. Close unmounts and deletes it; it closes by itself after 24 hours and when the VPS shuts down or restarts (also from inside): the copy is identical to the VPS disk and must not stay attached while the system boots. If the VPS restarted with the copy attached and used it as its disk, the panel shuts it down, detaches the copy and keeps it for 24 hours (changes made meanwhile are there): start the VPS again and it boots from its own disk. One backup at a time can be open per VPS. The VPS must be running Linux: on Windows you restore the whole backup. If the VPS can be live-moved between nodes it must be restarted once (the panel asks you first): the copy is attached afterwards, once the system has booted.

You can open the files of a backup in rescue mode too: the copy goes to the rescue system and files can be downloaded (to put them back on the VPS disk, mount it from the rescue system).