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Create and Restore backups

When Velero is activated on the platform level, platform admins can create backups of Persistent Volumes (PVs) in Team namespaces using the Console. When creating backups using the Console, a Velero schedule resource is created that will create the backup at a specified time, defined by a Cron expression.

In this how-to, we'll create a Backup of a PV and then restore it using the velero CLI integrated into the Shell.

Prerequisites​

To perform this how-to, first make sure Velero is enabled. Velero requires object storage to be be configured. Linode Object Storage or the local Minio can be used for Object Storage. In this how-to we'll use Minio.

When Velero is activated, only the Velero plug-in for Linode is configured by default. Velero also has support for backing up and restoring Kubernetes volumes using Restic. Note that Restic is not enabled by default.

For this how-to we'll use the PV of a Team's private Prometheus instance, so make sure Prometheus is also enabled.

Create a backup schedule​

  1. Select the Team name in the top bar to set the context to the namespace that contains the PV to backup. In this how-to we'll use the team demo.

  2. In the Console, click on Backup in the left menu under Platform and click on Create.

  3. Enter a name for the backup. In this how-to we'll use the name prom.

  4. Add the schedule of the backup. The schedule is a cron-type expression to schedule the backup. Defaults to once a day at 00:00. Create your cron-type expression here.

  5. In this how-to, we'll create a backup of the private Prometheus PV in the demo team by using a labelSelector.

note

If the labelSelector is not used, the backup schedule will backup all PVs of the team.

  • In the Console, click on Shell in the bottom of the left menu.

  • Run the following cmd in the shell:

kubectl get statefulset prometheus-demo-po-prometheus -n team-demo --show-labels
\NAME                            READY   AGE   LABELS
prometheus-demo-po-prometheus   1/1     77m   app.kubernetes.io/instance=prometheus-demo,app.kubernetes.io/managed-by=Helm,app.kubernetes.io/part-of=demo-po,app.kubernetes.io/version=46.4.1,app=demo-po-prometheus,chart=kube-prometheus-stack-46.4.1,heritage=Helm,operator.prometheus.io/mode=server,operator.prometheus.io/name=demo-po-prometheus,operator.prometheus.io/shard=0,prometheus=team-demo,release=prometheus-demo
  • click on Add Item and fill in the following:
name: prometheus
value: team-demo

  1. Use the default TTL (expiration of the backup). Defaults to 7 days.

  2. Click Submit

Check if the schedule is created​

  1. In the Console, click on Shell in the bottom of the left menu.

  2. Run the following cmd in the shell:

velero get schedules
NAME                    STATUS    CREATED                         SCHEDULE     BACKUP TTL   LAST BACKUP   SELECTOR   PAUSED
team-demo-backup-prom   Enabled   2023-09-24 11:50:59 +0000 UTC   55 * * * *   168h0m0s     n/a           <none>     false

Check if the backup is created​

  • Run the following cmd in the shell:
velero get backups
NAME                                   STATUS      ERRORS   WARNINGS   CREATED                         EXPIRES   STORAGE LOCATION   SELECTOR
team-demo-backup-prom-20230924115514   Completed   0        0          2023-09-24 11:55:14 +0000 UTC   6d        apl                prometheus=team-demo

You can see the status of the backup is Completed. The backup is now stored in the local Minio.

Restore the backup​

Now the backup is created, we can restore the backup.

Follow this procedure to restore a backup:

  • Scale down the replicas of the deployment or statefulset that uses the PV.

  • Delete the PVC. You can find the name of the PVC in the deployment spec.template.spec.volumes.

  • Run the following cmd in the shell:

velero restore create --from-backup team-demo-backup-prom-20230924115514
Restore request "team-demo-backup-prom-20230924115514-20230924133133" submitted successfully.
Run `velero restore describe team-demo-backup-prom-20230924115514-20230924133133` or `velero restore logs team-demo-backup-prom-20230924115514-20230924133133` for more details.
  • Scale up the replicas of the deployment or statefulset to use the restored PV.

Manually create backups​

Only platform administrators are able to use the Backup self-service feature to schedule backups of persistent volumes within Team namespaces. The Shell in the Console includes the Velero CLI, so if you're confortable with Velero you can also create you're own custom backups. Check the docs on https://velero.io/ for more information.

This is an example of creating a custom backup:

  • Create a full backup (to backup all resources, including PVs):
velero backup create my-custom-backup-01 --include-namespaces team-demo
  • Create a backup of specific resources:
velero backup create my-custom-backup-02 --include-namespaces team-demo --include-resources secret,deployment
  • Verify the backup:
velero describe backup my-custom-backup-01 --details
  • Restore a backup:
velero restore create --from-backup my-custom-backup-01