Creating a Snapshot of a Boot Environment

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The following command creates a snapshot of the existing boot environment named BeName.

beadm create BeName@snapshotdescription

The snapshot name must use the format BeName@snapshotdescription. BeName is the name of an existing boot environment that you want to make a snapshot from. If the existing boot environment name is not valid, the command fails. snapshotdescription is a custom description to identify the date or purpose of the snapshot.

Note - If you do not use the snapshot name format, the beadm create command will try to make a bootable clone instead of a unbootable snapshot. A clone is a complete bootable copy of an image that can be much larger than a mere snapshot. The snapshot merely records what's changed in the datasets instead of copying all the datasets contents.

Note the following snapshot sample names and descriptions:

BE1@0312200.12:15pm – The name for a snapshot of the existing BE1 boot environment. The custom description, 0312200.12:15pm, records the date and time that the snapshot was taken for future reference.
BE2@backup – The name for a snapshot of an original boot environment named BE2. The snapshot description merely notes that this is a backup of BE2.
BE1@march132008 – The name for a snapshot of an original boot environment named BE1. The snapshot description records the date that the snapshot was taken.

Some other system functions automatically take snapshots of a boot environment. Names for such snapshots automatically include a timestamp that indicates when the snapshot was taken. You must use the beadm create command if you want to customize a snapshot name.