Using Velero with Portworx

Velero is a utility for managing disaster recovery, specifically for your Kubernetes cluster resources and persistent volumes. To take snapshots of Portworx volumes through Velero you need to install and configure the Portworx plugin.

These instructions are for Velero v1.0 and higher. For older versions of Ark (previous name for the Velero project), please click here.

Install Velero Plugin

Run the following command to install the Portworx plugin for Velero:

velero plugin add portworx/velero-plugin:1.0.0

This should add an init container to your Velero deployment to install the plugin.

Configure Velero to use Portworx snapshots

Once the plugin is installed, you need to create VolumeSnapshotLocation objects for Velero to use when taking volume snapshots. These specify whether you want to take local or cloud snapshots.

velero snapshot-location create portworx-local --provider portworx.io/portworx

# credId is optional, required only if Portworx is configured with more than one credential.
velero snapshot-location create portworx-cloud --provider portworx.io/portworx --config type=cloud,credId=<UUID>

After applying the above specs you should see them when you list the VolumeSnapshotLocaions

kubectl get volumesnapshotlocation -n velero

NAME             AGE
portworx-cloud   54m
portworx-local   54m

Creating backups

Once the plugin has been installed and configured, everytime you take backups using Velero and include PVCs, it will also take Portworx snapshots of your volumes.

Local Backups

To backup all your apps in the default namespace and also create local snapshots of the volumes, you would use portworx-local for the snapshot location:

velero backup create default-ns-local-backup --include-namespaces=default --snapshot-volumes \
     --volume-snapshot-locations portworx-local

Backup request "default-ns-local-backup" submitted successfully.
Run `velero backup describe default-ns-local-backup` for more details.

Cloud Backups

To backup all your apps in the default namespace and also create cloud backups of the volumes, you would use portworx-cloud for the snapshot location:

velero backup create default-ns-cloud-backup --include-namespaces=default --snapshot-volumes \
     --volume-snapshot-locations portworx-cloud

Backup request "default-ns-cloud-backup" submitted successfully.
Run `velero backup describe default-ns-cloud-backup` for more details.

Listing backups

Once the specs and volumes have been backed up you should see the backup marked as Completed in velero.

velero get backup

NAME                      STATUS      CREATED                         EXPIRES   STORAGE LOCATION    SELECTOR
default-ns-local-backup   Completed   2018-11-11 20:10:45 +0000 UTC   29d       default             <none>
default-ns-cloud-backup   Completed   2018-11-11 20:15:45 +0000 UTC   29d       default             <none>

Restoring from backups

When restoring from backups, a clone volume will be created from the snapshot and bound to the restored PVC. To restore from the backup created above you can run the following command:

velero restore create --from-backup default-ns-local-backup

Restore request "default-ns-local-backup-20181111201245" submitted successfully.
Run `velero restore describe default-ns-local-backup-20181111201245` for more details.