5.5. Save and restore simulation

Bochs has now full save/restore support. The state of cpu(s), memory, devices and hard drive images [1] can be saved. When running Bochs there will be a button in the header bar called "Suspend". Depending on config interface and GUI there will be a prompt where you can enter a path to an existing directory or a GUI folder selection dialog box. It is possible to save the state at any time, but we recommend to do it when the simulation is idle. After pressing OK/Enter, Bochs will save a set of files into the selected folder. It is possible to continue after saving the state, but when using the restore function in a new Bochs session, all changes after this checkpoint will be lost.

To restore the saved simulation state, you can select the restore function in the text mode start menu or specify the restore path at the command line:

bochs -r /path/to/save-restore-data

Then Bochs will start up using the saved configuration and log options, restores the state of the hardware and begins the simulation. In the restore mode Bochs will ignore bochsrc options from the command line and does not load a normal config file.

Notes

[1]

The disk image mode "vvfat" does not support save/restore. All other disk image modes copy the whole image or the file containing changes (journal). This may take some time, so be patient when using this feature.