Downloading and transferring an instance backup from one OpenStack region to another

Knowledge Base

KB0051286

Downloading and transferring an instance backup from one OpenStack region to another


Icons/System/eye-open Created with Sketch. 598 Views 15.10.2025 Configuration

Objective

A situation may arise where you need to move your Public Cloud instance from one OpenStack region to another, either because you would prefer to move to a newly available OpenStack region or because you want to migrate from OVHcloud Labs to Public Cloud.

This guide explains how to transfer an instance backup from one OpenStack region to another while preserving the configuration and state of the instance.

Requirements

In order to do the transfer, you will need an environment with:

This environment will be used as a "jump host" to transfer the backup from one region to another. This environment can be an instance hosted on OVHCloud or your local machine.

You will also need a Public Cloud instance in your OVHcloud account.

Instructions

If you need to create a backup with OpenStack, please refer to this dedicated guide on how to backup an instance..

Download the backup

Next, run this command to list available instances:

$ openstack image list
+--------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+--------+
| ID                                   | Name                                          | Status |
+--------------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+--------+
| 825b785d-8a34-40f5-bdcd-0a3c3c350c5a | snap_server1                                 | active |
| 3ff877dc-1a62-43e7-9655-daff37a0c355 | NVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC)                        | active |
| a14a7c1e-3ac5-4a61-9d36-1abc4ab4d5e8 | Centos 7                                      | active |
| f720a16e-543b-42e5-af45-cc188ad2dd34 | Debian 8 - GitLab                             | active |
| d282e7aa-332c-4dc7-90a9-d49641fa7a95 | CoreOS Stable                                 | active |
| 2519f0fb-18cc-4915-9227-7754292b9713 | Ubuntu 16.04                                  | active |
| b15789f8-2e2f-4f6c-935d-817567319627 | Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard - UEFI        | active |
| ed2f327f-dbae-4f9e-9754-c677a1b76fa3 | Ubuntu 14.04                                  | active |
| 9c9b3772-5320-414a-90bf-60307ff60436 | Debian 8 - Docker                             | active |

Now identify the instance backup from the list:

| 825b785d-8a34-40f5-bdcd-0a3c3c350c5a | snap_server1 | qcow2 | bare | 1598029824 | active |

Finally, run this command to download the backup on the jump host:

$ openstack image save --file snap_server1.qcow 825b785d-8a34-40f5-bdcd-0a3c3c350c5a

Transfer the backup to another OpenStack region

To start the transfer process, you first need to load new environment variables.

If you are transferring your backup to an OpenStack region within the same project, you will need to change the variable OS_REGION_NAME. 

$ export OS_REGION_NAME=SBG1

If you are transferring your backup to another project or account, you will have to reload the environment variables linked to that account using the following command:

$ source openrc.sh

To transfer the backup to the new OpenStack region, use this command:

$ openstack image create --disk-format qcow2 --container-format bare --file snap_server1.qcow snap_server1

If your instance uses a Windows image, you need to add specific properties. Otherwise, when creating the instance via the OVHcloud Control Panel, it will not be possible to associate a flavor of the win-x-x type. This type of flavor, and only this one, enables authentication to the OVHcloud KMS.

Add specific properties for image creation:

$ openstack image create --disk-format qcow2 --container-format bare --file snap_server1.qcow --property "_system_cloud_property=windows" --property "distro_family=windows" --property "os_type=windows" snap_server1

Add specific properties after image creation:

$ openstack image set --property "_system_cloud_property=windows" --property "distro_family=windows" --property "os_type=windows" <image_uuid>
+------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Field            | Value                                                                                                                                                                                     |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| checksum         | 82cb7d57ec7278818bba0afcf802f0fb                                                                                                                                                          |
| container_format | bare                                                                                                                                                                                      |
| created_at       | 2019-03-22T14:26:22Z                                                                                                                                                                      |
| disk_format      | qcow2                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| file             | /v2/images/1bf21cf3-8d39-40ae-b088-5549c31b7905/file                                                                                                                                      |
| id               | 0a3f5901-2314-438a-a7af-ae984dcbce5c                                                                                                                                                    |
| min_disk         | 0                                                                                                                                                                                         |
| min_ram          | 0                                                                                                                                                                                         |
| name             | snap_server1                                                                                                                                                                             |
| owner            | 4e03fd164d504aa3aa03938f0bf4ed90                                                                                                                                                          |
| properties       | direct_url='swift+config://ref1/glance/1bf21cf3-8d39-40ae-b088-5549c31b7905', locations='[{u'url': u'swift+config://ref1/glance/1bf21cf3-8d39-40ae-b088-5549c31b7905', u'metadata': {}}]' |
| protected        | False                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| schema           | /v2/schemas/image                                                                                                                                                                         |
| size             | 3004956672                                                                                                                                                                                |
| status           | active                                                                                                                                                                                    |
| tags             |                                                                                                                                                                                           |
| updated_at       | 2019-03-22T14:41:05Z                                                                                                                                                                      |
| virtual_size     | None                                                                                                                                                                                      |
| visibility       | private                                                                                                                                                                                   |
+------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you wish to recreate your instance from this backup, follow our guide "Using instance backups to create or restore an instance".

Go further

Join our community of users.

Related articles