Creating File Storage for VPC snapshots

Before you begin

Before you can use the CLI, you must install the IBM Cloud CLI and the VPC CLI plug-in. For more information, see the CLI prerequisites.

Log in to IBM Cloud®.

ibmcloud login --sso -a cloud.ibm.com

This command returns a URL and prompts for a passcode. Go to that URL in your browser and log in. If successful, you get a one-time passcode. Copy this passcode and paste it as a response on the prompt. After successful authentication, you are prompted to choose your account. If you have access to multiple accounts, select the account that you want to log in as. Respond to any remaining prompts to finish logging in.

Before you start, gather the following information:

• A unique name for the snapshot. Share snapshot name must be unique at the share level. For suggestions about how to name your snapshots, see Naming snapshots.
• The name or ID of the source share.
• Any tags that you want to attach to the snapshot.

Use the following CLI commands to collect the information that you need.

• ibmcloud is shares - This command lists all available shares in the region that you selected. Locate the share in the list, verify the status (available).
• ibmcloud is share SHARE_ID - Use this command with the share ID from the output of the previous command to review the details of the share. If the output shows that the share is available, attached to an instance and not busy, you can create a snapshot.

Prerequisites for creating a snapshot with the API

You can create a snapshot by calling the VPC API. Before you start, gather the following information:

• A unique name for the snapshot. Share snapshot name must be unique at the share level. For suggestions about how to name your snapshots, see Naming snapshots.
• The ID of the source share.
• Any tags that you want to attach to the snapshot.

Creating a snapshot with the API

You can programmatically create a snapshot of a file share by calling the shares/{share-id}/snapshots API method. The following example creates a snapshot of a share by using the share ID, and specifies user tags that can be associated with a backup policy.

curl -X POST \
"$vpc_api_endpoint/v1/shares/{share-id}/snapshots?version=2024-12-10&generation=2" \
-H "Authorization: $iam_token"
-d '{
  "name": "my-first-share-snapshot",
  "user_tags": [
    "env:test"
  ]
}'

A successful response looks like the following example. The snapshot lifecycle state is pending while the snapshot is created. When it is successfully created, the status changes to stable.

{
  "captured_at": "2024-12-10T01:21:12.000Z",
  "created_at": "2024-12-10T01:59:46.000Z",
  "crn": "crn:v1:bluemix:public:is:us-south:a/a1234567::share-snapshot:r006-0fe9e5d8-0a4d-4818-96ec-e99708644a58/r006-e13ee54f-baa4-40d3-b35c-b9ec163972b4",
  "fingerprint": "7abc3aef-c2bc-4f65-a296-2928e534d498",
  "href": "https://us-south.iaas.cloud.ibm.com/v1/shares/r006-0fe9e5d8-0a4d-4818-96ec-e99708644a58/snapshots/r006-e13ee54f-baa4-40d3-b35c-b9ec163972b4",
  "id": "r006-e13ee54f-baa4-40d3-b35c-b9ec163972b4",
  "lifecycle_state": "pending",
  "minimum_size": 10,
  "name": "my-first-share-snapshot",
  "resource_group": {
    "href": "https://resource-controller.cloud.ibm.com/v2/resource_groups/fee82deba12e4c0fb69c3b09d1f12345",
    "id": "fee82deba12e4c0fb69c3b09d1f12345",
    "name": "Default"
  },
  "resource_type": "share_snapshot",
  "status": "available",
  "status_reasons": [],
  "user_tags": [],
  "zone": {
    "href": "https://us-south.iaas.cloud.ibm.com/v1/regions/us-south/zones/us-south-1",
    "name": "us-south-1"
  }
}