KodeKloud Notes

In this guide, you’ll learn how to back up and restore your Consul service state using snapshot commands. We’ll cover:

Creating a snapshot file
Inspecting snapshot metadata
Restoring a cluster from a snapshot

These steps are critical for disaster recovery and cluster portability.

Prerequisites

A running Consul server (open source) cluster
Consul CLI installed and in your $PATH
Permissions to read/write snapshot files

Note

Ensure you have sufficient disk space in your working directory before creating large snapshots.

1. Taking a Snapshot

SSH into one of your Consul server nodes.
Change to a writable directory (e.g., /tmp):
```
cd /tmp
```
Run the save subcommand to generate a snapshot file:
```
consul snapshot save consul.snap
```
Confirm the operation:
```
==> Consul snapshot saved: consul.snap
```

Verify the file exists:

ls -lh
# -rw-r--r-- 1 consul consul  13K Jul  5 12:34 consul.snap

2. Inspecting a Snapshot

To view metadata about an existing snapshot file, use the inspect subcommand:

consul snapshot inspect consul.snap

Sample output:

ID:            17-3678-1613078754824
Size:          13367
Index:         3678
Term:          17
Version:       1

Type                   Count     Size
----                   -----     ----
Register               14        9KB
License                1         1.2KB
KVS                    7         837B
...
Total                  —         13.1KB

Note

The Version field refers to the snapshot format, not the Consul binary version.
Index and Term reflect the Raft state at snapshot creation.

3. Restoring a Snapshot

When recovering a failed cluster or migrating state, restore from your snapshot:

consul snapshot restore consul.snap

After the restore completes:

Restart all Consul agents or services to load the restored data.

Check cluster status:

consul operator raft list-peers
consul members

Warning

Do not restore a snapshot into an active cluster without first stopping agents—this can lead to data corruption.

Snapshot Commands Reference

Command	Description	Example Usage
`consul snapshot save`	Create a new snapshot file	`consul snapshot save backup.snap`
`consul snapshot inspect`	Show metadata for a snapshot	`consul snapshot inspect backup.snap`
`consul snapshot restore`	Restore state from a snapshot file	`consul snapshot restore backup.snap`

Links and References

By following these steps, you can efficiently manage Consul snapshots, ensuring reliable backups and quick recovery for your service cluster.

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