Back up and restore applications

Limits

• You can create only full backups for applications. Incremental backups are not supported.
• When you back up an application, the resources in the Deleting state are not backed up.
• If you want to create a snapshot of a disk volume, you must install the Container Storage Interface (CSI) plug-in of V1.1.0 or later. For more information about how to install the CSI plug-in, see Install and upgrade the CSI plug-in.

Method 1: Back up and restore applications by using the application backup feature in the console

Step 1: Create a backup vault

When you back up applications in an ACK cluster, the backup files are stored in an Object Storage Service (OSS) bucket.

1. Log on to the ACK console.
2. In the left-side navigation pane of the ACK console, click Clusters.
3. On the Clusters page, find the cluster that you want to manage and click the name of the cluster or click Details in the Actions column. The details page of the cluster appears.
4. In the left-side navigation pane of the details page, choose Operations > Application Backup (Public Preview).
5. On the Application Backup page, click Create on the Backup Vaults tab.
6. In the Create panel, set the parameters and click OK.

   Parameter	Description
   Vault Name	The name of the backup vault. The name can contain lowercase letters and digits.
   Bucket Region	The region where the OSS bucket is deployed.
   Bucket Name	The name of the OSS bucket.
   Bucket Subdirectory	The subdirectory of the OSS bucket. This parameter is optional.
   Network Type	Valid values: Public Network and Internal Network. If your network allows you use the internal endpoint of the OSS bucket to transmit data, select Internal Network. By default, ACK transmits data over the internal network.

Step 2: Create a backup task

1. Log on to the ACK console.
2. In the left-side navigation pane of the ACK console, click Clusters.
3. On the Clusters page, find the cluster that you want to manage and click the name of the cluster or click Details in the Actions column. The details page of the cluster appears.
4. In the left-side navigation pane of the details page, choose Operations > Application Backup (Public Preview).
5. On the Application Backup page, click the Backups tab.
6. On the Backups tab, click Create.
7. In the Create panel, set the parameters and click OK.
   

   Parameter	Description
   Name	The name of the backup task. This parameter is required.
   Backup Vaults	Select the backup vault that you want to use. This parameter is required.
   Backup Namespaces	You can select one or more namespaces that you want to back up. Applications in the selected namespaces are backed up.
   Label	Specify a label. Applications with the specified label are backed up.
   Excluded Namespaces	You can select one or more namespaces that you want to exclude from the backup task. Applications in the excluded namespaces are not backed up.
   Excluded Resources	You can specify one or more Kubernetes resources that you want to exclude from the backup task and separate them with commas (,), for example, pod or Secret. The excluded resources are not backed up.
   Volume Backup	Specify whether to enable volume backup. You can enable this feature to back up the application data stored in the relevant volume. If you select Enable, you must set Backup Method: Disk Snapshot: uses the disk snapshot feature of Alibaba Cloud disks to back up application data. Snapshots are stored in a disk. Restic: uses the open source Restic program to back up application data. Backup files are stored in OSS.
   Validity Period	Specify the retention period of backup files. Backup files cannot be restored after they expire.
   Scheduled Backup	Specify whether to periodically back up applications and application data. You can enter a cron expression to set a backup schedule. For more information about cron expressions, see how-use-cron-linux.

   Note

   • The name of the backup task can contain only lowercase letters and digits, and cannot contain space characters.
   • You can select or exclude multiple namespaces.
   • You can specify only one resource label in each backup task.
   • If you select the Disk Snapshot option, the disk snapshot feature of Alibaba Cloud disks is used to back up a disk volume. If you select the Restic option, the open source Restic program is used to back up a disk volume. We recommend that you select the Disk Snapshot option.
   • You can set a backup schedule by entering a cron expression or a backup interval.
   • After you enable scheduled backup, you can view the details about scheduled backups on the Scheduled Backup Configurations tab of the Application Backup page.
   On the Backups tab, if the state of the backup task is Completed, the task is created.

Step 3: Create a restoration task

1. Log on to the ACK console.
2. In the left-side navigation pane of the ACK console, click Clusters.
3. On the Clusters page, find the cluster that you want to manage and click the name of the cluster or click Details in the Actions column. The details page of the cluster appears.
4. In the left-side navigation pane of the details page, choose Operations > Application Backup (Public Preview).
5. On the Application Backup page, click the Restore tab.
6. On the Restore tab, click Create Restoration Task.
7. In the Create Restoration Task panel, enter a name in the Name field, select a backup file from the Backup Name drop-down list, and then click OK.
   Note

   • The task name can contain only lowercase letters and digits.
   • Existing resources in the cluster are not overwritten during the restoration process. Only resources that do not exist in the cluster are restored. Before you can restore an application to an earlier version, you must delete the existing resources of the application.
8. In the message that appears, click OK.

Method 2: Back up and restore applications by using Velero

Velero is a cloud native tool that is used to back up, restore, and migrate applications in Kubernetes clusters. Velero is written in Go. Velero ensures data security when you use it to back up, restore, and migrate applications and persistent volumes (PVs) in ACK clusters. For more information about the source code of the Velero project, see velero. For more information about the source code of the Velero plug-in for Alibaba Cloud, see velero-plugin.

Before you can use Velero, you must install the Velero client based on the operating system of your server. For more information, see the Velero client.

Step 1: Configure an OSS bucket

You must create a BackupStorageLocation custom resource definition (CRD) to specify the storage location for Velero backups.

1. Use the following template to create a file named BackupStorageLocation.yaml:

   apiVersion: velero.io/v1
   kind: BackupStorageLocation
   metadata:
     labels:
       component: velero
     name: default
     namespace: velero
   spec:
     config:
       region: cn-hangzhou
     objectStorage:
       bucket: velero-bucket
     provider: alibabacloud

   Note

   • Set spec.config.region to the region where the OSS bucket is created.
   • Set spec.objectStorage.bucket to the name of the OSS bucket.
   • If your network allows you to transmit data to the internal OSS endpoint, add spec.config.network: internal to the file. This way, ACK transmits data over the internal network by default.
   • To use a subdirectory of the OSS bucket, add spe.objectStorage.prefix: <your prefix>. By default, ACK uses the root directory of the OSS bucket.
2. Run the following command to configure the OSS bucket:

   kubectl apply -f BackupStorageLocation.yaml

Step 2: Back up applications

velero backup create <BACKUP NAME> --include-namespaces <INCLUDE NAMESPACES>

If you want to back up the data in the PVs, perform the following steps:

1. Run the following command to add the backup.velero.io/backup-volumes annotation to the pods to which the PVs are mounted.

   kubectl -n <NAMESPACE> annotate pod/<POD NAME> backup.velero.io/backup-volumes=<POD VOLUME NAME>

2. After you add the annotation, run the following command to create a backup:

   velero backup create <BACKUP NAME> --include-namespaces <INCLUDE NAMESPACES>

   For example, you want to back up an NGINX application in the nginx-examples namespace and the PV of the application. The PV is named nginx-logs and mounted to the nginx-deployment-7477779c4f-rz95l pod. To back up the PV, perform the following steps:

   1. Run the following command to add an annotation to the PV that is mounted to the pod:

      kubectl -n nginx-example annotate pod/nginx-deployment-7477779c4f-rz95l backup.velero.io/backup-volumes=nginx-logs

   2. Run the following command to create a backup:

      velero backup create nginx-backup-with-pv --include-namespaces nginx-example

velero schedule create <NAME> --include-namespaces <NAMESPACE> --schedule "SCHEDULE"

Step 3: Restore applications

This example describes how to restore applications after the namespace to which the applications belong is deleted.

1. Run the following command to delete the nginx-example namespace:

   kubectl delete ns nginx-example

2. Run the following command to restore the applications:

   velero restore create --from-backup nginx-backup-without-pv