Snapshots of your Proxmox VE guests, on a schedule

cv4pve-autosnap --host=pve01 --api-token='autosnap@pve!snap=…' --vmid=@all status

Part of the real output on a test cluster: a job runs every two hours with the label 2hourly and --keep=10, so each guest has its last ten snapshots.

cv4pve-autosnap --host=pve01 --api-token='autosnap@pve!snap=…' --vmid=@all status

NODE	VM	TIME	PARENT	NAME	DESCRIPTION	VM STATUS
pve01	105	26/09/28 07:00:02	before-upgrade	auto2hourly260928070002	cv4pve-autosnap
pve01	105	26/09/28 09:00:04	auto2hourly260928070002	auto2hourly260928090004	cv4pve-autosnap
pve01	105	26/09/28 11:00:07	auto2hourly260928090004	auto2hourly260928110007	cv4pve-autosnap
pve01	1000	26/09/28 07:00:03	no-parent	auto2hourly260928070002	cv4pve-autosnap
pve01	1000	26/09/28 09:00:06	auto2hourly260928070002	auto2hourly260928090004	cv4pve-autosnap
pve02	203	26/09/28 07:00:57	no-parent	auto2hourly260928070002	cv4pve-autosnap

The name is auto + label + timestamp; both the timestamp and TIME are in the local time of the machine that runs the tool. VM STATUS is X when the snapshot includes the RAM (--state).

Why

A snapshot is the quickest way back when something goes wrong inside a guest: a package upgrade that breaks the boot, a bad configuration change, a script that deletes the wrong folder. Proxmox VE takes a snapshot in one click, but only when someone remembers to click, and it never removes the old ones. Snapshots that nobody removes pile up and fill the storage.

cv4pve-autosnap does both halves of the job: it takes the snapshot of every guest you select and removes the oldest ones of the same label, so a schedule of every two hours, keep 10 stays at ten snapshots per guest, forever. Run it from cron or the Windows Task Scheduler at fixed times, or from your own scripts right before an upgrade: no hand-written loop over the API to maintain.

A snapshot is not a backup

Keep your backups

A snapshot lives on the same storage as the disk it belongs to. If that storage fails, is corrupted or is deleted, the snapshots go with it. Use snapshots to go back a few hours after a mistake; use Proxmox VE backups (vzdump, Proxmox Backup Server) to survive the loss of a disk, a storage or a node. cv4pve-autosnap does not replace them.

	Snapshot (cv4pve-autosnap)	Backup (vzdump, Proxmox Backup Server)
Where it is	On the storage of the guest disks	On a separate storage
Survives the loss of that storage	No	Yes
Going back	Rollback in place, the guest returns to that moment	Restore, as the same or a new guest
Cost	Each snapshot keeps the blocks changed since it was taken: keep a few, for a short time	Space on the backup storage
Needs	A storage that supports snapshots: see the storage table	Any storage for the guest; a backup target

Where it fits

The cv4pve suite follows the Unix philosophy: each tool does one thing and does it well. cv4pve-autosnap keeps recent restore points of the guests. Its companion in continuous protection, cv4pve-node-protect, saves the configuration of the nodes, the part that guest backups do not cover.

Want the schedules, the history of the runs and HTTP webhooks from a web interface? cv4pve-admin runs the same engine as its AutoSnap module.

Outside the nodes, API only

cv4pve-autosnap runs outside the cluster (on your workstation, a management VM or a scheduled job) and talks only to the Proxmox VE REST API. Nothing is installed on the nodes and no SSH or root shell is needed: an API token with the four privileges in Permissions is enough. Give it more than one node and it connects to the first one that answers, so the snapshots still run while a node is down.

What it does for you

01

Retention per label

hourly, daily, weekly, or any name you choose. Each label keeps its own number of snapshots; the oldest are removed right after the new one is taken.

02

Choose the guests

By ID, name, range, node, pool or tag, with exclusions. The selection is read at every run, so a migrated or newly tagged guest is picked up with no change.

03

Storage guard

Before a snapshot, the usage of the storages holding the disks is checked: above 95% (or your threshold) the guest is skipped.

04

Hook scripts

Your script runs at every phase (job start, before and after each snapshot and removal) with the guest, label and result in environment variables.

05

Consistent snapshots

Warns when a VM has the QEMU guest agent off. With the agent, Proxmox VE freezes the guest filesystems during a snapshot without RAM; --state saves the RAM too.

06

Try before you change

--dry-run prints what would be created and removed, without touching the cluster.

Part of the cv4pve suite →

Take your first snapshots

Download the binary, try it with --dry-run, then schedule it.

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