2.6. Suspending Virtual Machines and Containers

Virtuozzo Hybrid Server allows you to suspend a running virtual machine or container on the physical server by saving its current state to a special file. Later on, you can resume the virtual machine or container and get it in the same state it was suspended. Suspending your virtual machines and containers may prove useful, for example, if you need to restart the physical server but do not want to:

  • Quit the applications currently running in the virtual machine or container.

  • Spend much time on shutting down the guest operating system and then starting it again.

You can use the prlctl suspend command to save the current state of a virtual machine or container . For example, you can issue the following command to suspend the container MyCT:

# prlctl suspend MyCT

At any time, you can resume the container MyCT by executing the following command:

# prlctl resume MyCT

Once the restoration is complete, any applications that were running in the container MyCT when it was suspended would be running again and the data inside the container would be the same.