Automatically create snapshot of shutting down host

[CSierks]

Hi,

is it possible to configure the virtual box in such a way, that on shutdown of the host a snapshot will be created automatically?

Cheers
CSierks

[socratis]

Not a built-in one, not exactly what you have in mind. Your best option would be to write a script where you shut down the VM programmatically, take a snapshot, shut down the host.

Alternatively (or even try that first), there is ch. 9.20.9 Default Action when Terminating the VM, where you can set the default action as "SaveState" when shutting down a VM.

1. I have not tried it, and I'm not planning on shutting down my host to test it...
2. I'm not sure if the "I'm shutting down" notification will work, or your host will just end the task. You need to try it... That's why I suggested the script first.

[CSierks]

Sorry, my mistake. Not on shutting down the host, but the guest.
Sometimes this Snapshot on shutting down the guest can be a direly needed backup. (I lost some data due to unknown interaction between Tortoise SVN, Samba and Linux-File-System, and the automatic snapshot saved me partially).

So on shutting down the guest there is a Default Action.
I will investigate in that.

Thanks for the reply.

[socratis]

So on shutting down the guest there is a Default Action.

Be careful with that. It's not shutting down the guest from within the guest, it simply saves the VM state, which means the guest will be resuming live. This is not a snapshot.

Again, if you want to do this, I suggest developing the habit of shutting down the guest properly and taking a snapshot, if you need to. And since too many (more than one) snapshots can mean trouble, I suggest that the next habit you develop involves backing up the whole VM folder and merging the snapshots.