This version of GitHub Enterprise Server was discontinued on 2024-09-25. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise Server. For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.

Taking a snapshot

To save your GitHub Enterprise Server data before upgrading, take a virtual machine snapshot.

In this article

About snapshots

A snapshot stores the state of a virtual machine (VM) at a point in time. GitHub highly recommends taking a hypervisor level snapshot before upgrading your VM so that if an upgrade fails, you can revert your VM back to the snapshot.

Types of snapshots

There are two types of snapshots:

  • VM snapshots save your entire VM state, including user data and configuration data. This snapshot method requires a large amount of disk space and is time consuming.
  • Data disk snapshots only save your user data.

Creating a snapshot

GitHub only recommends taking a VM snapshot when the instance's VM is powered down, or when the instance is in maintenance mode and all background jobs have finished.

The type of snapshot you can take depends on the platform you use.

  • Some platforms don't allow you to take a snapshot of just your data disk. For these platforms, you'll need to take a snapshot of the entire VM.
  • If your hypervisor does not support full VM snapshots, you should take a snapshot of the root disk and data disk in quick succession.
PlatformSnapshot methodDocumentation
Amazon AWSDiskCreate Amazon EBS snapshots in the AWS documentation
AzureVMCreate a snapshot of a virtual hard disk on an Azure VM in Microsoft Learn
Hyper-VVMEnable or disable checkpoints in Hyper-V in Microsoft Learn
Google Compute EngineDiskCreate and manage disk snapshots in the Google Cloud documentation
VMwareVMTaking Snapshots of a Virtual Machine in VMware Docs