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Backing up and restoring virtual machines

Red Hat supports using OKD Virtualization 4.14 or later with OADP 1.3.x or later.

OADP versions earlier than 1.3.0 are not supported for back up and restore of OKD Virtualization.

Back up and restore virtual machines by using the OpenShift API for Data Protection.

You can install the OpenShift API for Data Protection (OADP) with OKD Virtualization by installing the OADP Operator and configuring a backup location. You can then install the Data Protection Application.

OpenShift API for Data Protection with OKD Virtualization supports the following backup and restore storage options:

  • Container Storage Interface (CSI) backups

  • Container Storage Interface (CSI) backups with DataMover

The following storage options are excluded:

  • File system backup and restore

  • Volume snapshot backup and restore

For more information, see Backing up applications with File System Backup: Kopia or Restic.

To install the OADP Operator in a restricted network environment, you must first disable the default OperatorHub sources and mirror the Operator catalog.

See Using Operator Lifecycle Manager on restricted networks for details.

Installing and configuring OADP with OKD Virtualization

As a cluster administrator, you install OADP by installing the OADP Operator.

The latest version of the OADP Operator installs Velero 1.14.

Prerequisites

  • Access to the cluster as a user with the cluster-admin role.

Procedure

  1. Install the OADP Operator according to the instructions for your storage provider.

  2. Install the Data Protection Application (DPA) with the kubevirt and openshift OADP plugins.

  3. Back up virtual machines by creating a Backup custom resource (CR).

    Red Hat support is limited to only the following options:

    • CSI backups

    • CSI backups with DataMover.

You restore the Backup CR by creating a Restore CR.

Additional resources

Installing the Data Protection Application

You install the Data Protection Application (DPA) by creating an instance of the DataProtectionApplication API.

Prerequisites

  • You must install the OADP Operator.

  • You must configure object storage as a backup location.

  • If you use snapshots to back up PVs, your cloud provider must support either a native snapshot API or Container Storage Interface (CSI) snapshots.

  • If the backup and snapshot locations use the same credentials, you must create a Secret with the default name, cloud-credentials.

    If you do not want to specify backup or snapshot locations during the installation, you can create a default Secret with an empty credentials-velero file. If there is no default Secret, the installation will fail.
Procedure

  1. Click Operators → Installed Operators and select the OADP Operator.

  2. Under Provided APIs, click Create instance in the DataProtectionApplication box.

  3. Click YAML View and update the parameters of the DataProtectionApplication manifest:

    apiVersion: oadp.openshift.io/v1alpha1
kind: DataProtectionApplication
metadata:
  name: <dpa_sample>
  namespace: openshift-adp (1)
spec:
  configuration:
    velero:
      defaultPlugins:
        - kubevirt (2)
        - gcp (3)
        - csi (4)
        - openshift (5)
      resourceTimeout: 10m (6)
    nodeAgent: (7)
      enable: true (8)
      uploaderType: kopia (9)
      podConfig:
        nodeSelector: <node_selector> (10)
  backupLocations:
    - velero:
        provider: gcp (11)
        default: true
        credential:
          key: cloud
          name: <default_secret> (12)
        objectStorage:
          bucket: <bucket_name> (13)
          prefix: <prefix> (14)
    1 The default namespace for OADP is openshift-adp. The namespace is a variable and is configurable.
    2 The kubevirt plugin is mandatory for OKD Virtualization.
    3 Specify the plugin for the backup provider, for example, gcp, if it exists.
    4 The csi plugin is mandatory for backing up PVs with CSI snapshots. The csi plugin uses the Velero CSI beta snapshot APIs. You do not need to configure a snapshot location.
    5 The openshift plugin is mandatory.
    6 Specify how many minutes to wait for several Velero resources before timeout occurs, such as Velero CRD availability, volumeSnapshot deletion, and backup repository availability. The default is 10m.
    7 The administrative agent that routes the administrative requests to servers.
    8 Set this value to true if you want to enable nodeAgent and perform File System Backup.
    9 Enter kopia as your uploader to use the Built-in DataMover. The nodeAgent deploys a daemon set, which means that the nodeAgent pods run on each working node. You can configure File System Backup by adding spec.defaultVolumesToFsBackup: true to the Backup CR.
    10 Specify the nodes on which Kopia are available. By default, Kopia runs on all nodes.
    11 Specify the backup provider.
    12 Specify the correct default name for the Secret, for example, cloud-credentials-gcp, if you use a default plugin for the backup provider. If specifying a custom name, then the custom name is used for the backup location. If you do not specify a Secret name, the default name is used.
    13 Specify a bucket as the backup storage location. If the bucket is not a dedicated bucket for Velero backups, you must specify a prefix.
    14 Specify a prefix for Velero backups, for example, velero, if the bucket is used for multiple purposes.

  4. Click Create.

Verification

  1. Verify the installation by viewing the OpenShift API for Data Protection (OADP) resources by running the following command:

    $ oc get all -n openshift-adp
    Example output
    NAME                                                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/oadp-operator-controller-manager-67d9494d47-6l8z8    2/2     Running   0          2m8s
pod/node-agent-9cq4q                                     1/1     Running   0          94s
pod/node-agent-m4lts                                     1/1     Running   0          94s
pod/node-agent-pv4kr                                     1/1     Running   0          95s
pod/velero-588db7f655-n842v                              1/1     Running   0          95s

NAME                                                       TYPE        CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)    AGE
service/oadp-operator-controller-manager-metrics-service   ClusterIP   172.30.70.140    <none>        8443/TCP   2m8s
service/openshift-adp-velero-metrics-svc                   ClusterIP   172.30.10.0      <none>        8085/TCP   8h

NAME                        DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   NODE SELECTOR   AGE
daemonset.apps/node-agent    3         3         3       3            3           <none>          96s

NAME                                                READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/oadp-operator-controller-manager    1/1     1            1           2m9s
deployment.apps/velero                              1/1     1            1           96s

NAME                                                           DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/oadp-operator-controller-manager-67d9494d47    1         1         1       2m9s
replicaset.apps/velero-588db7f655                              1         1         1       96s

  2. Verify that the DataProtectionApplication (DPA) is reconciled by running the following command:

    $ oc get dpa dpa-sample -n openshift-adp -o jsonpath='{.status}'
    Example output
    {"conditions":[{"lastTransitionTime":"2023-10-27T01:23:57Z","message":"Reconcile complete","reason":"Complete","status":"True","type":"Reconciled"}]}

  3. Verify the type is set to Reconciled.

  4. Verify the backup storage location and confirm that the PHASE is Available by running the following command:

    $ oc get backupstoragelocations.velero.io -n openshift-adp
    Example output
    NAME           PHASE       LAST VALIDATED   AGE     DEFAULT
dpa-sample-1   Available   1s               3d16h   true

  5. Verify that the PHASE is in Available.