What does the positional parameters of "virsh backup-begin" actually do?

Normally when I backup a kvm machine I shutdown the machine then run: virsh list -all virsh shutdown Ubuntu18 virsh dumpxml Ubuntu18 > /MyBackup/Ubuntu18.xml cp /var/lib/libvirt/images/Ubuntu18.qcow2 /MyBackup/Ubuntu18.qcow2 However, I found a new sub-command. The help file says: % virsh backup-begin --help NAME backup-begin - Start a disk backup of a live domain SYNOPSIS backup-begin <domain> [--backupxml <string>] [--checkpointxml <string>] [--reuse-external] DESCRIPTION Use XML to start a full or incremental disk backup of a live domain, optionally creating a checkpoint OPTIONS [--domain] <string> domain name, id or uuid --backupxml <string> domain backup XML --checkpointxml <string> domain checkpoint XML --reuse-external reuse files provided by caller The problem with this help is, it is not clear enough. I understand that I should use virsh backup-begin vm1 to backup a live kvm machine. However, this command only create .qcow2 files. What about the .xml file. What does --backupxml , --checkpointxml & --reuse-external actually do? When should I use them?