Back up a Cluster - Azure, vSphere, GCP, and Pre-provisioned Environments

With this workflow, you can back up and restore your cluster’s applications. This backup contains Kubernetes objects and the Persistent Volumes (PVs) of Gitea pods. Given that Gitea’s PVs store information on your cluster’s state, you will be able to Restore your Cluster, if required.

Run the following commands in the DKP Essential cluster. For general guidelines on how to set the context, refer to Provide Context for Commands with a kubeconfig File.

Back up Instructions

Create a backup with Velero. Use the following flags to reduce the scope of the backup and only include the applications that are affected during the expansion:

CODE

velero backup create pre-expansion \
  --include-namespaces="kommander,kommander-default-workspace,kommander-flux,kubecost" \
  --include-cluster-resources \
  --snapshot-volumes=false --wait \
  --namespace kommander

After completion, the output should look similar to this:

CODE

Backup request "pre-expansion" submitted successfully.
Waiting for backup to complete. You may safely press ctrl-c to stop waiting - your backup will continue in the background.
...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Backup completed with status: Completed. You may check for more information using the commands `velero backup describe pre-expansion` and `velero backup logs pre-expansion`.

Verify the Backup

Ensure the backup has completed successfully:

CODE

velero backup describe pre-expansion

The following example output will vary depending on your cloud provider. Verify that it shows no errors and the Phase is Completed:

CODE

Name:         pre-expansion
Namespace:    kommander
Labels:       velero.io/storage-location=default
Annotations:  velero.io/source-cluster-k8s-gitversion=v1.25.5
              velero.io/source-cluster-k8s-major-version=1
              velero.io/source-cluster-k8s-minor-version=25

Phase:  Completed

Errors:    0
Warnings:  0

Namespaces:
  Included:  kommander, kommander-default-workspace, kommander-flux, kubecost
  Excluded:  <none>

Resources:
  Included:        *
  Excluded:        <none>
  Cluster-scoped:  included

Label selector:  <none>

Storage Location:  default

Velero-Native Snapshot PVs:  auto

TTL:  720h0m0s

CSISnapshotTimeout:  10m0s

Hooks:  <none>

Backup Format Version:  1.1.0

Started:    2023-03-15 10:40:25 -0400 EDT
Completed:  2023-03-15 10:44:39 -0400 EDT

Expiration:  2023-04-14 10:40:24 -0400 EDT

Total items to be backed up:  5188
Items backed up:              5188

Velero-Native Snapshots: <none included>

Ensure that the PodVolumeBackup objects have been created:

CODE

kubectl get podvolumebackups -A

The output should look similar to this:

CODE

NAMESPACE   NAME        STATUS      CREATED   NAMESPACE   POD                  VOLUME   REPOSITORY ID                                                                                                        UPLOADER TYPE   STORAGE LOCATION   AGE
kommander   ash-59ntg   Completed   39s       kommander   gitea-postgresql-0   data     s3:https://a54904d80411e4d64b572b96cb3ddb62-477717230.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com:8085/dkp-velero/restic/kommander   restic          default            39s
kommander   ash-5vsbf   Completed   42s       kommander   gitea-0              data     s3:https://a54904d80411e4d64b572b96cb3ddb62-477717230.us-west-2.elb.amazonaws.com:8085/dkp-velero/restic/kommander   restic          default            42s

Next Step

Expand your platform. Use the UI or CLI:

UI: Convert an Essential Cluster into a Managed Cluster

CLI: Convert an Essential Cluster into a Managed Cluster

Back up Instructions

Verify the Backup

Next Step

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