Managing Time Roaming Snapshots Using Commands

Precautions

• Currently, only DDS 4.2 and 4.4 support this feature. If your instance version is too early, upgrade it by referring to Upgrading a Minor Engine Version.
• Time roaming snapshots are persistent and are retained after a DB instance is restarted.
• You can create a maximum of eight time roaming snapshots for a DB instance. The snapshot name can contain digits (0-9), letters (a-z or A-Z), and underscores (_), for example, Snapshot_2024_09_30_15_18.
• Time roaming snapshots contain data of all user databases at the current time. The database account used to deliver commands must have at least the {role: "dbAdminAnyDatabase"} permission. For details about how to create a database account, see Creating a User.
• The time roaming snapshot command can be delivered only to the primary node (or mongos node in a cluster instance) and synchronized to the standby node in oplog. To avoid possible rollback caused by a primary/standby switchover, set writeConcern to majority to create and delete time roaming snapshots.
• Do not change the metadata of related collections (including deleting or renaming collections, and creating or deleting indexes) during the validity period of a time roaming snapshot. Operations on metadata will invalidate the snapshots of the corresponding collections, but will not affect the snapshots of other collections.
• Do not delete snapshots when reading a time roaming snapshot.
• Creating a time roaming snapshot does not occupy extra disk space. However, this operation prevents snapshot-related data from being compacted by the storage engine. If a new write operation is performed after a time roaming snapshot is created, check the disk usage of the DB instance in a timely manner. For details about the storage engine, see Q&A About Switching Storage Engine to RocksDB for DDS 4.2 and Later Versions.
• Data related to time roaming snapshots is not compacted by the storage engine. If a large number of time roaming snapshots are created, the write performance of the DB instance decreases by 5% to 10%.
• To enable time roaming snapshots on a cluster instance, you need to disable the balancer. For details about how to manage the balancer, see How Do I Manage the Balancer?

Prerequisites

A DDS instance has been connected. For details, see Connecting to a DB Instance.

Creating a Time Roaming Snapshot

1. Go to the CLI of the primary node of a DDS replica set instance or a mongos node of a DDS cluster instance, and switch to the user database.

   use test // It can be any user database, which does not affect the final result.
2. Run the following command to create a time roaming snapshot:

   db.runCommand({snapshot: 1, op: "create", name: "s1"})    // creates a time roaming snapshot named s1.
   db.runCommand({snapshot: 1, op: "create"}) // If the name parameter is not specified, stable is used as the snapshot name by default.

Viewing Time Roaming Snapshots

1. Go to the CLI of the primary node of a DDS replica set instance or a mongos node of a DDS cluster instance, and switch to the user database.

   use test // It can be any user database, which does not affect the final result.
2. Run the following command to view time roaming snapshots at the current time:

db.runCommand({snapshot: 1, op: "list"}) // {snapshot: 1, op: "list"} 
// {snapshot: 1, op: "list"} execution result
{
	"snapshotList" : [
		"s1",
		"stable"
	],
	"ok" : 1,
	"operationTime" : Timestamp(1727683917, 1),
	"$clusterTime" : {
		"clusterTime" : Timestamp(1727683917, 1),
		"signature" : {
			"hash" : BinData(0,"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA="),
			"keyId" : NumberLong(0)
		}
	}
}

Deleting a Time Roaming Snapshot

1. Go to the CLI of the primary node of a DDS replica set instance or a mongos node of a DDS cluster instance, and switch to the user database.

   use test // It can be any user database, which does not affect the final result.
2. Run the following command to delete a time roaming snapshot:

   db.runCommand({snapshot:1, op:"delete", name:"s1"})    // deletes a time roaming snapshot named s1.
   db.runCommand({snapshot:1, op:"delete"})    // If the name parameter is not specified, the time roaming snapshot named stable is deleted by default. db.runCommand({snapshot:1, op:"delete", name:"*"})    // If the name parameter is set to *, all time roaming snapshots are deleted.

Reading a Time Roaming Snapshot Using find/getMore

1. Go to the CLI of the primary node of a DDS replica set instance or a mongos node of a DDS cluster instance.
2. Run the find command to read a time roaming snapshot. The readAt parameter needs to be specified. The find command needs to be delivered in runCommand mode. For details, see find.

   PRIMARY> use test 
   PRIMARY> db.foo.insert({a:1, c:1})
   PRIMARY> db.foo.insert({a:2, c:2}) 
   //Create a time roaming snapshot named s1.
   PRIMARY> db.runCommand({snapshot:1, op:"create", name:"s1"}) 
   //Change the file {a:1, c:1} to {a:1, c:3} after the snapshot is created.
   PRIMARY> db.foo.update({a:1}, {$set:{c:3}}) 
   //Run the find command on the time roaming snapshot named s1 to query the files that meet the condition {a:1}.
   PRIMARY> db.runCommand({find:"foo", filter:{a:1}, readAt:"s1"})
   {
           "cursor" : {
                   "firstBatch" : [
                           {
                                   "_id" : ObjectId("5dd75662b9c50d4bdca52721"),
                                   "a" : 1,
                                   "c" : 1
                           },
                   ],
                   "id" : NumberLong(0),
                   "ns" : "test.foo"
           },
           "ok" : 1
   }

   In the find command, if readAt: s1 is specified, data is read from snapshot s1. If filter: {a:1} is specified, all files that meet the condition a=1 are filtered. As shown in the preceding example, after snapshot s1 is created, the operation of updating {a:1, c:1} to {a:1, c:3} does not affect the snapshot data.

3. Run the getMore command to read a time roaming snapshot. For details about the getMore command format, see getMore.

   PRIMARY> use test 
   PRIMARY> db.foo.insert({a:1, c:1})
   PRIMARY> db.foo.insert({a:2, c:2}) 
   //Create a time roaming snapshot named s1.
   PRIMARY> db.runCommand({snapshot:1, op:"create", name:"s1"}) 
   //Change the file {a:1, c:1} to {a:1, c:3} after the snapshot is created.
   PRIMARY> db.foo.update({a:1}, {$set:{c:3}}) 
   //On the time roaming snapshot s1, run the find command to query all files that meet the condition a≤2 and set batchSize to 0.
   PRIMARY> db.runCommand({getMore: NumberLong("47677869455"), collection:"foo"})
   {
           "cursor" : {
                   "nextBatch" : [
                           {
                                   "_id" : ObjectId("5dd75662b9c50d4bdca52721"),
                                   "a" : 1,
                                   "c" : 1
                           },
                           {
                                   "_id" : ObjectId("5dd75687b9c50d4bdca52723"),
                                   "a" : 2,
                                   "c" : 2
                           }
                   ],
                   "id" : NumberLong(0),
                   "ns" : "test.foo"
           },
           "ok" : 1
   }

   In the getMore command, if you specify readAt: s1 in the find command, data is read from snapshot s1. If you specify filter: {a: {$lte: 2}}, all files that meet the condition a≤2 are filtered. As shown in the preceding example, after snapshot s1 is created, the operation of updating {a:1, c:1} to {a:1, c:3} does not affect the snapshot data.