How to take snapshot of firewalls under VSX

[pradeepsalunke]

How to take snapshot of firewalls under VSX. we have vsx setup under that there are four firewalls.

[Oliver_Fink]

You can create snapshots via Clish: add snapshot __SHORT__ desc "__DESCRIPTION__"

You can see all snapshots with: show snapshots

You can see details of a snapshot with: show snapshot __SHORT__

Be aware if your file system is XFS. I am not sure, but this seems to be the default since R81. We had the problem that the snapshot produces a very high load with normal disks leading to a VSX node becoming unavailable and losing connections (load rises from below 5 to far above 30 on a 32 core machine). Such, we are producing snapshots only during maintenance windows after moving all VSes to another node.

[Chris_Atkinson]

Further to @Oliver_Fink guidance make sure you also have recovery points for the Managment server for the same point in time.

Refer also: sk100395, sk101515

[Bob_Zimmerman]

To directly address a potential point of confusion, a VSX box is a single firewall. One operating system, one set of logical volumes. It just has multiple VRFs.

Snapshots are an OS-level thing. Since all the VSs on a VSX box are running under the same OS, a snapshot covers all of them.

[Matlu]

Hello
What are the 'must-haves' before taking a SNAPSHOT in a productive environment?

How much minimum disk space should you have in a VSX box?
Should the #df -h command be used on the VS0, as part of the pre-validations?

Does a box volume issue also have to be validated as such before running a SNAPSHOT?

Thanks. 

[emmap]

If you do a 'show snapshots' from clish on your box it will tell you if it has enough space for a new one. Snapshots are stored in unpartitioned space, so the 'df -h' output isn't relevant to them. 

[Matlu]

Hi
Do you have to check the 'unpartitioned space' before taking a new SNAPSHOT?
How do you check this, and what is the ideal value you should have to be able to run a SNAPSHOT?

[Bob_Zimmerman]

Run the command 'show snapshots' in clish. It will tell you how much space is available and approximately how much space will be consumed by a new snapshot (snapshots generally take a little less space than clish says they will).

[Expert@DallasSC]# clish -c "show snapshots"
Restore points:
---------------
AutoSnap_2025_04_30__08_00
AutoSnap_2025_05_01__08_00
AutoSnap_2025_05_02__08_00

Creation of an additional restore point will need 18.384G
Amount of space available for restore points is 160.03G