Revert a file share to a prior snapshot state

The following guide shows you how to revert an instance, specifically a single file share within an instance, to a prior snapshot state.

Should you use the revert operation?

The revert snapshot feature is an irreversible operation, both to the live file system and to the newer snapshots in the chain. Use the revert feature carefully. For a more detailed explanation, see Revert to a snapshot state.

All data written after the creation of the target snapshot is deleted at the beginning of the revert process and cannot be recovered. All snapshots that are newer than the target snapshot are also deleted. For example, snapshot1, snapshot2, and snapshot3 are created sequentially. Reverting the instance to the state captured in snapshot2 means that all data written after snapshot2, as well as all snapshots taken after the creation of snapshot2, are deleted in the revert process.

While a revert operation can take up to two minutes to complete, cleanup of the deleted data can take between six hours to ten days, depending on the number of files involved. You must wait for the revert operation to complete before starting another revert operation.

Only instances with a single share can revert to a snapshot state. The revert snapshot feature can't be combined with Filestore multishares for GKE. For more information, see Snapshot feature limitations or the gcloud filestore instances revert page.

Use gcloud CLI to revert a file share to a previous snapshot

gcloud CLI

To revert a file share to the state captured in a snapshot:

  1. Unmount the file share from clients:

    sudo umount mount-point-directory

  2. Revert the file share to a snapshot state using the instances revert command:

    gcloud filestore instances revert INSTANCE_ID \
    --target-snapshot=SNAPSHOT_ID \
    --location=LOCATION

    Replace the following:

    • INSTANCE_ID with the name of the instance where you want to apply the revert operation. For example, my-instance-1.
    • SNAPSHOT_ID with the name of the snapshot you want to use for the revert operation. For example, my-snapshot-3.
    • LOCATION with the location of the instance. For example, us-central1.

You must wait for the revert operation to complete before you can start another revert operation for the instance. Revert operations can take up to two minutes. However, the data cleanup and space reclamation process can take between six hours to ten days to complete. During this process, the reclaimed space becomes available gradually while the cleanup operation finishes and all reclaimed space is available. For more information, see Snapshot limitations.

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