Base snapshots

A base snapshot saves a booted template's memory and VM state. New sandboxes restore from the snapshot instead of booting from scratch, which makes creates much faster. On a single node, you can also keep a small pool of ready sandboxes built from that snapshot.

This page is for a single worker node run directly with the node managers. On Kubernetes, use warm pools instead: local settings on a Kubernetes-managed node are overwritten by the control plane.

Run the commands below on the worker node. The binaries are in /space/bin.

Create a base snapshot

sudo /space/bin/space-tmplmgr base-snapshot --template my-template --state true
sudo /space/bin/space-tmplmgr list

The snapshot is ready when the template's BASE SNAP column shows on. A snapshot belongs to one template release, so check again after you publish a new release.

To remove it, run the same command with --state false.

Create a node warm pool (optional)

sudo /space/bin/space-tmplmgr create-pool --template my-template --boot-mode snapshot --count 5
sudo /space/bin/space-tmplmgr pool-status --template my-template

Create the base snapshot first so the pool fills from it. Remove the pool with space-tmplmgr delete-pool --template my-template.

Start a sandbox

sudo /space/bin/space-sbxmgr create --runtime fc --template my-template \
  --boot-mode pool --blocking

If what you asked for isn't available, the create falls back without an error, down to a cold boot. Check the Boot mode: line in the output to see which one ran.

Benchmarks

scripts/benchmarks/bench-sbx-lifecycle.sh finds the template's base snapshot and pool automatically. It skips the snapshot and pool cases when they don't exist.