Chapter 14. Backup and restore 14.1. Backup and restore by using VM snapshots You can back up and restore virtual machines (VMs) by using snapshots. Snapshots are supported by the following storage providers: Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation Any other cloud storage provider with the Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver that supports the Kubernetes Volume Snapshot API Online snapshots have a default time deadline of five minutes ( 5m ) that can be changed, if needed. Important Online snapshots are supported for virtual machines that have hot plugged virtual disks. However, hot plugged disks that are not in the virtual machine specification are not included in the snapshot. To create snapshots of an online (Running state) VM with the highest integrity, install the QEMU guest agent if it is not included with your operating system. The QEMU guest agent is included with the default Red Hat templates. The QEMU guest agent takes a consistent snapshot by attempting to quiesce the VM file system as much as possible, depending on the system workload. This ensures that in-flight I/O is written to the disk before the snapshot is taken. If the guest agent is not present, quiescing is not possible and a best-effort snapshot is taken. The conditions under which the snapshot was taken are reflected in the snapshot indications that are displayed in the web console or CLI. 14.1.1. About snapshots A snapshot represents the state and data of a virtual machine (VM) at a specific point in time. You can use a snapshot to restore an existing VM to a state (represented by the snapshot) for backup and disaster recovery or to rapidly roll back to a development version. A VM snapshot is created from a VM that is powered off (Stopped state) or powered on (Running state). When taking a snapshot of a running VM, the controller checks that the QEMU guest agent is installed and running. If so, it freezes the VM file system before taking the snapshot, and thaws the file system after the snapshot is taken. The snapshot stores a copy of each Container Storage Interface (CSI) volume attached to the VM and a copy of the VM specification and metadata. Snapshots cannot be changed after creation. You can perform the following snapshot actions: Create a new snapshot List all snapshots attached to a specific VM Restore a VM from a snapshot Delete an existing VM snapshot VM snapshot controller and custom resources The VM snapshot feature introduces three new API objects defined as custom resource definitions (CRDs) for managing snapshots: VirtualMachineSnapshot : Represents a user request to create a snapshot. It contains information about the current state of the VM. VirtualMachineSnapshotContent : Represents a provisioned resource on the cluster (a snapshot). It is created by the VM snapshot controller and contains references to all resources required to restore the VM. VirtualMachineRestore : Represents a user request to restore a VM from a snapshot. The VM snapshot controller binds a VirtualMachineSnapshotContent object with the VirtualMachineSnapshot object for which it was created, with a one-to-one mapping. 14.1.2. Creating snapshots You can create snapshots of virtual machines (VMs) by using the OpenShift Container Platform web console or the command line. 14.1.2.1. Creating a snapshot by using the web console You can create a snapshot of a virtual machine (VM) by using the OpenShift Container Platform web console. The VM snapshot includes disks that meet the following requirements: Either a data volume or a persistent volume claim Belong to a storage class that supports Container Storage Interface (CSI) volume snapshots Procedure Navigate to Virtualization VirtualMachines in the web console. Select a VM to open the VirtualMachine details page. If the VM is running, click the options menu and select Stop to power it down. Click the Snapshots tab and then click Take Snapshot . Enter the snapshot name. Expand Disks included in this Snapshot to see the storage volumes to be included in the snapshot. If your VM has disks that cannot be included in the snapshot and you wish to proceed, select I am aware of this warning and wish to proceed . Click Save . 14.1.2.2. Creating a snapshot by using the command line You can create a virtual machine (VM) snapshot for an offline or online VM by creating a VirtualMachineSnapshot object. Prerequisites Ensure that the persistent volume claims (PVCs) are in a storage class that supports Container Storage Interface (CSI) volume snapshots. Install the OpenShift CLI ( oc ). Optional: Power down the VM for which you want to create a snapshot. Procedure Create a YAML file to define a VirtualMachineSnapshot object that specifies the name of the new VirtualMachineSnapshot and the name of the source VM as in the following example: apiVersion: snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1 kind: VirtualMachineSnapshot metadata: name: <snapshot_name> spec: source: apiGroup: kubevirt.io kind: VirtualMachine name: <vm_name> Create the VirtualMachineSnapshot object: USD oc create -f <snapshot_name>.yaml The snapshot controller creates a VirtualMachineSnapshotContent object, binds it to the VirtualMachineSnapshot , and updates the status and readyToUse fields of the VirtualMachineSnapshot object. Optional: If you are taking an online snapshot, you can use the wait command and monitor the status of the snapshot: Enter the following command: USD oc wait <vm_name> <snapshot_name> --for condition=Ready Verify the status of the snapshot: InProgress - The online snapshot operation is still in progress. Succeeded - The online snapshot operation completed successfully. Failed - The online snapshot operaton failed. Note Online snapshots have a default time deadline of five minutes ( 5m ). If the snapshot does not complete successfully in five minutes, the status is set to failed . Afterwards, the file system will be thawed and the VM unfrozen but the status remains failed until you delete the failed snapshot image. To change the default time deadline, add the FailureDeadline attribute to the VM snapshot spec with the time designated in minutes ( m ) or in seconds ( s ) that you want to specify before the snapshot operation times out. To set no deadline, you can specify 0 , though this is generally not recommended, as it can result in an unresponsive VM. If you do not specify a unit of time such as m or s , the default is seconds ( s ). Verification Verify that the VirtualMachineSnapshot object is created and bound with VirtualMachineSnapshotContent and that the readyToUse flag is set to true : USD oc describe vmsnapshot <snapshot_name> Example output apiVersion: snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1 kind: VirtualMachineSnapshot metadata: creationTimestamp: "2020-09-30T14:41:51Z" finalizers: - snapshot.kubevirt.io/vmsnapshot-protection generation: 5 name: mysnap namespace: default resourceVersion: "3897" selfLink: /apis/snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1/namespaces/default/virtualmachinesnapshots/my-vmsnapshot uid: 28eedf08-5d6a-42c1-969c-2eda58e2a78d spec: source: apiGroup: kubevirt.io kind: VirtualMachine name: my-vm status: conditions: - lastProbeTime: null lastTransitionTime: "2020-09-30T14:42:03Z" reason: Operation complete status: "False" 1 type: Progressing - lastProbeTime: null lastTransitionTime: "2020-09-30T14:42:03Z" reason: Operation complete status: "True" 2 type: Ready creationTime: "2020-09-30T14:42:03Z" readyToUse: true 3 sourceUID: 355897f3-73a0-4ec4-83d3-3c2df9486f4f virtualMachineSnapshotContentName: vmsnapshot-content-28eedf08-5d6a-42c1-969c-2eda58e2a78d 4 1 The status field of the Progressing condition specifies if the snapshot is still being created. 2 The status field of the Ready condition specifies if the snapshot creation process is complete. 3 Specifies if the snapshot is ready to be used. 4 Specifies that the snapshot is bound to a VirtualMachineSnapshotContent object created by the snapshot controller. Check the spec:volumeBackups property of the VirtualMachineSnapshotContent resource to verify that the expected PVCs are included in the snapshot. 14.1.3. Verifying online snapshots by using snapshot indications Snapshot indications are contextual information about online virtual machine (VM) snapshot operations. Indications are not available for offline virtual machine (VM) snapshot operations. Indications are helpful in describing details about the online snapshot creation. Prerequisites You must have attempted to create an online VM snapshot. Procedure Display the output from the snapshot indications by performing one of the following actions: Use the command line to view indicator output in the status stanza of the VirtualMachineSnapshot object YAML. In the web console, click VirtualMachineSnapshot Status in the Snapshot details screen. Verify the status of your online VM snapshot by viewing the values of the status.indications parameter: Online indicates that the VM was running during online snapshot creation. GuestAgent indicates that the QEMU guest agent was running during online snapshot creation. NoGuestAgent indicates that the QEMU guest agent was not running during online snapshot creation. The QEMU guest agent could not be used to freeze and thaw the file system, either because the QEMU guest agent was not installed or running or due to another error. 14.1.4. Restoring virtual machines from snapshots You can restore virtual machines (VMs) from snapshots by using the OpenShift Container Platform web console or the command line. 14.1.4.1. Restoring a VM from a snapshot by using the web console You can restore a virtual machine (VM) to a configuration represented by a snapshot in the OpenShift Container Platform web console. Procedure Navigate to Virtualization VirtualMachines in the web console. Select a VM to open the VirtualMachine details page. If the VM is running, click the options menu and select Stop to power it down. Click the Snapshots tab to view a list of snapshots associated with the VM. Select a snapshot to open the Snapshot Details screen. Click the options menu and select Restore VirtualMachineSnapshot . Click Restore . 14.1.4.2. Restoring a VM from a snapshot by using the command line You can restore an existing virtual machine (VM) to a configuration by using the command line. You can only restore from an offline VM snapshot. Prerequisites Power down the VM you want to restore. Procedure Create a YAML file to define a VirtualMachineRestore object that specifies the name of the VM you want to restore and the name of the snapshot to be used as the source as in the following example: apiVersion: snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1 kind: VirtualMachineRestore metadata: name: <vm_restore> spec: target: apiGroup: kubevirt.io kind: VirtualMachine name: <vm_name> virtualMachineSnapshotName: <snapshot_name> Create the VirtualMachineRestore object: USD oc create -f <vm_restore>.yaml The snapshot controller updates the status fields of the VirtualMachineRestore object and replaces the existing VM configuration with the snapshot content. Verification Verify that the VM is restored to the state represented by the snapshot and that the complete flag is set to true : USD oc get vmrestore <vm_restore> Example output apiVersion: snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1 kind: VirtualMachineRestore metadata: creationTimestamp: "2020-09-30T14:46:27Z" generation: 5 name: my-vmrestore namespace: default ownerReferences: - apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1 blockOwnerDeletion: true controller: true kind: VirtualMachine name: my-vm uid: 355897f3-73a0-4ec4-83d3-3c2df9486f4f resourceVersion: "5512" selfLink: /apis/snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1/namespaces/default/virtualmachinerestores/my-vmrestore uid: 71c679a8-136e-46b0-b9b5-f57175a6a041 spec: target: apiGroup: kubevirt.io kind: VirtualMachine name: my-vm virtualMachineSnapshotName: my-vmsnapshot status: complete: true 1 conditions: - lastProbeTime: null lastTransitionTime: "2020-09-30T14:46:28Z" reason: Operation complete status: "False" 2 type: Progressing - lastProbeTime: null lastTransitionTime: "2020-09-30T14:46:28Z" reason: Operation complete status: "True" 3 type: Ready deletedDataVolumes: - test-dv1 restoreTime: "2020-09-30T14:46:28Z" restores: - dataVolumeName: restore-71c679a8-136e-46b0-b9b5-f57175a6a041-datavolumedisk1 persistentVolumeClaim: restore-71c679a8-136e-46b0-b9b5-f57175a6a041-datavolumedisk1 volumeName: datavolumedisk1 volumeSnapshotName: vmsnapshot-28eedf08-5d6a-42c1-969c-2eda58e2a78d-volume-datavolumedisk1 1 Specifies if the process of restoring the VM to the state represented by the snapshot is complete. 2 The status field of the Progressing condition specifies if the VM is still being restored. 3 The status field of the Ready condition specifies if the VM restoration process is complete. 14.1.5. Deleting snapshots You can delete snapshots of virtual machines (VMs) by using the OpenShift Container Platform web console or the command line. 14.1.5.1. Deleting a snapshot by using the web console You can delete an existing virtual machine (VM) snapshot by using the web console. Procedure Navigate to Virtualization VirtualMachines in the web console. Select a VM to open the VirtualMachine details page. Click the Snapshots tab to view a list of snapshots associated with the VM. Click the options menu beside a snapshot and select Delete VirtualMachineSnapshot . Click Delete . 14.1.5.2. Deleting a virtual machine snapshot in the CLI You can delete an existing virtual machine (VM) snapshot by deleting the appropriate VirtualMachineSnapshot object. Prerequisites Install the OpenShift CLI ( oc ). Procedure Delete the VirtualMachineSnapshot object: USD oc delete vmsnapshot <snapshot_name> The snapshot controller deletes the VirtualMachineSnapshot along with the associated VirtualMachineSnapshotContent object. Verification Verify that the snapshot is deleted and no longer attached to this VM: USD oc get vmsnapshot 14.1.6. Additional resources CSI Volume Snapshots 14.2. Backing up and restoring virtual machines Important Red Hat supports using OpenShift 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 OpenShift 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 OpenShift Virtualization by installing the OADP Operator and configuring a backup location. You can then install the Data Protection Application. Note OpenShift API for Data Protection with OpenShift 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. 14.2.1. Installing and configuring OADP with OpenShift 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 Install the OADP Operator according to the instructions for your storage provider. Install the Data Protection Application (DPA) with the kubevirt and openshift OADP plugins. Back up virtual machines by creating a Backup custom resource (CR). Warning 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 OADP plugins Backup custom resource (CR) Restore CR Using Operator Lifecycle Manager on restricted networks 14.2.2. 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 . Note 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 Click Operators Installed Operators and select the OADP Operator. Under Provided APIs , click Create instance in the DataProtectionApplication box. 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 OpenShift 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. Click Create . Verification Verify the installation by viewing the OpenShift API for Data Protection (OADP) resources by running the following command: USD oc get all -n openshift-adp Example output Verify that the DataProtectionApplication (DPA) is reconciled by running the following command: USD 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"}]} Verify the type is set to Reconciled . Verify the backup storage location and confirm that the PHASE is Available by running the following command: USD oc get backupstoragelocations.velero.io -n openshift-adp Example output NAME PHASE LAST VALIDATED AGE DEFAULT dpa-sample-1 Available 1s 3d16h true Verify that the PHASE is in Available .

Commands:
apiVersion: snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1 kind: VirtualMachineSnapshot metadata: name: <snapshot_name> spec: source: apiGroup: kubevirt.io kind: VirtualMachine name: <vm_name>
oc create -f <snapshot_name>.yaml
oc wait <vm_name> <snapshot_name> --for condition=Ready
oc describe vmsnapshot <snapshot_name>
apiVersion: snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1 kind: VirtualMachineSnapshot metadata: creationTimestamp: "2020-09-30T14:41:51Z" finalizers: - snapshot.kubevirt.io/vmsnapshot-protection generation: 5 name: mysnap namespace: default resourceVersion: "3897" selfLink: /apis/snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1/namespaces/default/virtualmachinesnapshots/my-vmsnapshot uid: 28eedf08-5d6a-42c1-969c-2eda58e2a78d spec: source: apiGroup: kubevirt.io kind: VirtualMachine name: my-vm status: conditions: - lastProbeTime: null lastTransitionTime: "2020-09-30T14:42:03Z" reason: Operation complete status: "False" 1 type: Progressing - lastProbeTime: null lastTransitionTime: "2020-09-30T14:42:03Z" reason: Operation complete status: "True" 2 type: Ready creationTime: "2020-09-30T14:42:03Z" readyToUse: true 3 sourceUID: 355897f3-73a0-4ec4-83d3-3c2df9486f4f virtualMachineSnapshotContentName: vmsnapshot-content-28eedf08-5d6a-42c1-969c-2eda58e2a78d 4
apiVersion: snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1 kind: VirtualMachineRestore metadata: name: <vm_restore> spec: target: apiGroup: kubevirt.io kind: VirtualMachine name: <vm_name> virtualMachineSnapshotName: <snapshot_name>
oc create -f <vm_restore>.yaml
oc get vmrestore <vm_restore>
apiVersion: snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1 kind: VirtualMachineRestore metadata: creationTimestamp: "2020-09-30T14:46:27Z" generation: 5 name: my-vmrestore namespace: default ownerReferences: - apiVersion: kubevirt.io/v1 blockOwnerDeletion: true controller: true kind: VirtualMachine name: my-vm uid: 355897f3-73a0-4ec4-83d3-3c2df9486f4f resourceVersion: "5512" selfLink: /apis/snapshot.kubevirt.io/v1alpha1/namespaces/default/virtualmachinerestores/my-vmrestore uid: 71c679a8-136e-46b0-b9b5-f57175a6a041 spec: target: apiGroup: kubevirt.io kind: VirtualMachine name: my-vm virtualMachineSnapshotName: my-vmsnapshot status: complete: true 1 conditions: - lastProbeTime: null lastTransitionTime: "2020-09-30T14:46:28Z" reason: Operation complete status: "False" 2 type: Progressing - lastProbeTime: null lastTransitionTime: "2020-09-30T14:46:28Z" reason: Operation complete status: "True" 3 type: Ready deletedDataVolumes: - test-dv1 restoreTime: "2020-09-30T14:46:28Z" restores: - dataVolumeName: restore-71c679a8-136e-46b0-b9b5-f57175a6a041-datavolumedisk1 persistentVolumeClaim: restore-71c679a8-136e-46b0-b9b5-f57175a6a041-datavolumedisk1 volumeName: datavolumedisk1 volumeSnapshotName: vmsnapshot-28eedf08-5d6a-42c1-969c-2eda58e2a78d-volume-datavolumedisk1
oc delete vmsnapshot <snapshot_name>
oc get vmsnapshot
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
oc get all -n openshift-adp
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
oc get dpa dpa-sample -n openshift-adp -o jsonpath='{.status}'
{"conditions":[{"lastTransitionTime":"2023-10-27T01:23:57Z","message":"Reconcile complete","reason":"Complete","status":"True","type":"Reconciled"}]}
oc get backupstoragelocations.velero.io -n openshift-adp
NAME PHASE LAST VALIDATED AGE DEFAULT dpa-sample-1 Available 1s 3d16h true