Documentation

Getting started

The following example sets up the Velero server and client, then backs up and restores a sample application.

For simplicity, the example uses Minio, an S3-compatible storage service that runs locally on your cluster. For additional functionality with this setup, see the docs on how to expose Minio outside your cluster.

NOTE The example lets you explore basic Velero functionality. Configuring Minio for production is out of scope.

See Set up Velero on your platform for how to configure Velero for a production environment.

If you encounter issues with installing or configuring, see Debugging Installation Issues.

Prerequisites

  • Access to a Kubernetes cluster, version 1.7 or later. Note: restic support requires Kubernetes version 1.10 or later, or an earlier version with the mount propagation feature enabled. Restic support is not required for this example, but may be of interest later. See Restic Integration.
  • A DNS server on the cluster
  • kubectl installed

Download Velero

  1. Download the latest official release’s tarball for your client platform.

    We strongly recommend that you use an official release of Velero. The tarballs for each release contain the velero command-line client. The code in the main branch of the Velero repository is under active development and is not guaranteed to be stable!

  2. Extract the tarball:

    tar -xvf <RELEASE-TARBALL-NAME>.tar.gz -C /dir/to/extract/to
    

    We’ll refer to the directory you extracted to as the “Velero directory” in subsequent steps.

  3. Move the velero binary from the Velero directory to somewhere in your PATH.

MacOS Installation

On Mac, you can use HomeBrew to install the velero client:

brew install velero

Set up server

These instructions start the Velero server and a Minio instance that is accessible from within the cluster only. See Expose Minio outside your cluster for information about configuring your cluster for outside access to Minio. Outside access is required to access logs and run velero describe commands.

  1. Create a Velero-specific credentials file (credentials-velero) in your local directory:

    [default]
    aws_access_key_id = minio
    aws_secret_access_key = minio123
    
  2. Start the server and the local storage service. In the Velero directory, run:

    kubectl apply -f examples/minio/00-minio-deployment.yaml
    
    velero install \
        --provider aws \
        --bucket velero \
        --secret-file ./credentials-velero \
        --use-volume-snapshots=false \
        --backup-location-config region=minio,s3ForcePathStyle="true",s3Url=http://minio.velero.svc:9000
    

    This example assumes that it is running within a local cluster without a volume provider capable of snapshots, so no VolumeSnapshotLocation is created (--use-volume-snapshots=false).

    Additionally, you can specify --use-restic to enable restic support, and --wait to wait for the deployment to be ready.

  3. Deploy the example nginx application:

    kubectl apply -f examples/nginx-app/base.yaml
    
  4. Check to see that both the Velero and nginx deployments are successfully created:

    kubectl get deployments -l component=velero --namespace=velero
    kubectl get deployments --namespace=nginx-example
    

Back up

  1. Create a backup for any object that matches the app=nginx label selector:

    velero backup create nginx-backup --selector app=nginx
    

    Alternatively if you want to backup all objects except those matching the label backup=ignore:

    velero backup create nginx-backup --selector 'backup notin (ignore)'
    
  2. (Optional) Create regularly scheduled backups based on a cron expression using the app=nginx label selector:

    velero schedule create nginx-daily --schedule="0 1 * * *" --selector app=nginx
    

    Alternatively, you can use some non-standard shorthand cron expressions:

    velero schedule create nginx-daily --schedule="@daily" --selector app=nginx
    

    See the cron package’s documentation for more usage examples.

  3. Simulate a disaster:

    kubectl delete namespace nginx-example
    
  4. To check that the nginx deployment and service are gone, run:

    kubectl get deployments --namespace=nginx-example
    kubectl get services --namespace=nginx-example
    kubectl get namespace/nginx-example
    

    You should get no results.

    NOTE: You might need to wait for a few minutes for the namespace to be fully cleaned up.

Restore

  1. Run:

    velero restore create --from-backup nginx-backup
    
  2. Run:

    velero restore get
    

    After the restore finishes, the output looks like the following:

    NAME                          BACKUP         STATUS      WARNINGS   ERRORS    CREATED                         SELECTOR
    nginx-backup-20170727200524   nginx-backup   Completed   0          0         2017-07-27 20:05:24 +0000 UTC   <none>
    

NOTE: The restore can take a few moments to finish. During this time, the STATUS column reads InProgress.

After a successful restore, the STATUS column is Completed, and WARNINGS and ERRORS are 0. All objects in the nginx-example namespace should be just as they were before you deleted them.

If there are errors or warnings, you can look at them in detail:

velero restore describe <RESTORE_NAME>

For more information, see the debugging information.

Clean up

If you want to delete any backups you created, including data in object storage and persistent volume snapshots, you can run:

velero backup delete BACKUP_NAME

This asks the Velero server to delete all backup data associated with BACKUP_NAME. You need to do this for each backup you want to permanently delete. A future version of Velero will allow you to delete multiple backups by name or label selector.

Once fully removed, the backup is no longer visible when you run:

velero backup get BACKUP_NAME

To completely uninstall Velero, minio, and the nginx example app from your Kubernetes cluster:

kubectl delete namespace/velero clusterrolebinding/velero
kubectl delete crds -l component=velero
kubectl delete -f examples/nginx-app/base.yaml

Expose Minio outside your cluster with a Service

When you run commands to get logs or describe a backup, the Velero server generates a pre-signed URL to download the requested items. To access these URLs from outside the cluster – that is, from your Velero client – you need to make Minio available outside the cluster. You can:

  • Change the Minio Service type from ClusterIP to NodePort.
  • Set up Ingress for your cluster, keeping Minio Service type ClusterIP.

You can also specify a publicUrl config field for the pre-signed URL in your backup storage location config.

For basic instructions on how to install the Velero server and client, see the getting started example.

Expose Minio with Service of type NodePort

The Minio deployment by default specifies a Service of type ClusterIP. You can change this to NodePort to easily expose a cluster service externally if you can reach the node from your Velero client.

You must also get the Minio URL, which you can then specify as the value of the publicUrl field in your backup storage location config.

  1. In examples/minio/00-minio-deployment.yaml, change the value of Service spec.type from ClusterIP to NodePort.

  2. Get the Minio URL:

  • if you’re running Minikube:

    minikube service minio --namespace=velero --url
    
  • in any other environment:

    1. Get the value of an external IP address or DNS name of any node in your cluster. You must be able to reach this address from the Velero client.

    2. Append the value of the NodePort to get a complete URL. You can get this value by running:

      kubectl -n velero get svc/minio -o jsonpath='{.spec.ports[0].nodePort}'
      
  1. Edit your BackupStorageLocation YAML, adding publicUrl: <URL_FROM_PREVIOUS_STEP> as a field under spec.config. You must include the http:// or https:// prefix.

Expose Minio outside your cluster with Kubernetes in Docker (KinD):

Kubernetes in Docker currently does not have support for NodePort services (see this issue). In this case, you can use a port forward to access the Minio bucket.

In a terminal, run the following:

MINIO_POD=$(kubectl get pods -n velero -l component=minio -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}')

kubectl port-forward $MINIO_POD -n velero 9000:9000

Then, in another terminal:

kubectl edit backupstoragelocation default -n velero

Add publicUrl: http://localhost:9000 under the spec.config section.

Work with Ingress

Configuring Ingress for your cluster is out of scope for the Velero documentation. If you have already set up Ingress, however, it makes sense to continue with it while you run the example Velero configuration with Minio.

In this case:

  1. Keep the Service type as ClusterIP.

  2. Edit your BackupStorageLocation YAML, adding publicUrl: <URL_AND_PORT_OF_INGRESS> as a field under spec.config.

Getting Started

To help you get started, see the documentation.