Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Restoring a Boot Volume

You can use a boot volume backup to create an instance or you can attach it to another instance as a data volume. However before you can use a boot volume backup, you need to restore it to a boot volume.

You can restore a boot volume from any of your incremental or full boot volume backups. Both backup types enable you to restore the full boot volume contents to the point-in-time snapshot of the boot volume when the backup was taken. You don't need to keep the initial full backup or subsequent incremental backups in the backup chain and restore them in sequence, you only need to keep the backups taken for the times you care about. See Boot Volume Backup Types for information about full and incremental backup types.

Required IAM Policy

To use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, you must be granted security access in a policy  by an administrator. This access is required whether you're using the Console or the REST API with an SDK, CLI, or other tool. If you get a message that you don't have permission or are unauthorized, verify with your administrator what type of access you have and which compartment  to work in.

If you're new to policies, see Getting Started with Policies and Common Policies. For reference material about writing policies for instances, cloud networks, or other Core Services API resources, see Details for the Core Services.

Using the Console

  1. Open the navigation menu and click Storage. Under Block Storage, click Block Volume Backups.

  2. Choose your Compartment.

  3. In the list of boot volume backups, click the Actions menu (Actions Menu) for the boot volume backup you want to restore and then click Restore Boot Volume.

  4. Specify a name for the boot volume, select the availability domain to use, and optionally select the cluster placement group in which to restore the boot volume to.

    Note

    The Cluster Placement Group control only appears in the Console if Cluster Placement Groups are enabled for the tenancy, and you've created and activated a cluster placement group with the capability added for volume resources, see Cluster Placement Groups for Block Volume.

  5. choose a backup policy for scheduled backups. See Policy-Based Backups for more information about scheduled backups and volume backup policies. Avoid entering confidential information.

  6. You can restore a boot volume backup to a larger volume size. To do this, check Custom Block Volume Size (GB) and then specify the new size. You can only increase the size of the volume, you cannot decrease the size. If you restore the block volume backup to a larger size volume, you need to extend the volume's partition, see Extending the Partition for a Boot Volume for more information.

  7. Click Create Boot Volume.

    The boot volume will be ready to use once its icon no longer lists it as PROVISIONING in the details page for the boot volume.

Next Steps

After you have restored the boot volume backup, you can:

Making a boot volume backup while an instance is running creates a crash-consistent backup, meaning the data is in the identical state it was in at the time the backup was made. This is the same state it would be in the case of a loss of power or hard crash. In most cases you can use the restored boot volume to create an instance, however to ensure a bootable image, you should create a custom image from your instance. For information about creating custom images, see Managing Custom Images.