How to install Velero in an OpenShift environment

Introduction

In a previous blog, Backing up OpenShift, I showed how to use Velero to back up an OpenShift cluster deployed to AWS.

The article didn’t specify how to install Velero in OpenShift, but simply pointed to the official Velero website. Well, the Velero website shows how to deploy to AWS, Azure, GCP and using MinIO, but I couldn’t find a straightforward way to do with OpenShift.

So in this blog, I show the steps required to install MinIO and Velero in an OpenShift environment

Clone the Velero repository

The first step is to clone the Velero repository:

git clone https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/velero.git
cd velero

Install MinIO

Now that we cloned the repository, deploying MinIO to your OpenShift environment is very simple:

oc apply -f examples/minio/00-minio-deployment.yaml

And you should see the output like this:

Eduardos-MBP:velero edu$ oc apply -f examples/minio/00-minio-deployment.yaml
namespace/velero configured
deployment.apps/minio unchanged
service/minio unchanged
job.batch/minio-setup unchanged

Expose MinIO

Now, we need to expose the MinIO service outside the cluster, so that the velero CLI can interact with it. In OpenShift, this is pretty simple:

oc project velero
oc expose svc minio

You should see the following output:

Eduardos-MBP:minio edu$ oc expose svc minio
route.route.openshift.io/minio exposed

You can get the information about the route by running the following command:

oc get route minio

You should be able to open the URL listed there and log in using user: minio and password: minio123

Install Velero CLI

Next, we need to install the Velero CLI in the local machine. For Mac, run the following command:

brew install velero

Create credential file

Next, we need to create the Minio credential file. So create a file named credentials-velero with the following content:

[default]
aws_access_key_id = minio
aws_secret_access_key = minio123

Install Velero

We are finally ready to install Velero. Run the following command:

velero install \
    --provider aws \
    --plugins velero/velero-plugin-for-aws:v1.0.0 \
    --bucket velero \
    --secret-file ./credentials-velero \
    --use-volume-snapshots=false \
    --backup-location-config region=minio,s3ForcePathStyle="true",s3Url=http://minio.velero.svc:9000

And you should see the following output:

edu@eduardos-air velero % velero install \
--provider aws \
--plugins velero/velero-plugin-for-aws:v1.0.0 \
--bucket velero \
--secret-file ./credentials-velero \
--use-volume-snapshots=false \
--backup-location-config region=minio,s3ForcePathStyle="true",s3Url=http://minio.velero.svc:9000
CustomResourceDefinition/backups.velero.io: attempting to create resource
CustomResourceDefinition/backups.velero.io: created
CustomResourceDefinition/backupstoragelocations.velero.io: attempting to create resource
CustomResourceDefinition/backupstoragelocations.velero.io: created
CustomResourceDefinition/deletebackuprequests.velero.io: attempting to create resource
CustomResourceDefinition/deletebackuprequests.velero.io: created
CustomResourceDefinition/downloadrequests.velero.io: attempting to create resource
CustomResourceDefinition/downloadrequests.velero.io: created
CustomResourceDefinition/podvolumebackups.velero.io: attempting to create resource
CustomResourceDefinition/podvolumebackups.velero.io: created
CustomResourceDefinition/podvolumerestores.velero.io: attempting to create resource
CustomResourceDefinition/podvolumerestores.velero.io: created
CustomResourceDefinition/resticrepositories.velero.io: attempting to create resource
CustomResourceDefinition/resticrepositories.velero.io: created
CustomResourceDefinition/restores.velero.io: attempting to create resource
CustomResourceDefinition/restores.velero.io: created
CustomResourceDefinition/schedules.velero.io: attempting to create resource
CustomResourceDefinition/schedules.velero.io: created
CustomResourceDefinition/serverstatusrequests.velero.io: attempting to create resource
CustomResourceDefinition/serverstatusrequests.velero.io: created
CustomResourceDefinition/volumesnapshotlocations.velero.io: attempting to create resource
CustomResourceDefinition/volumesnapshotlocations.velero.io: created
Waiting for resources to be ready in cluster...
Namespace/velero: attempting to create resource
Namespace/velero: already exists, proceeding
Namespace/velero: created
ClusterRoleBinding/velero: attempting to create resource
ClusterRoleBinding/velero: created
ServiceAccount/velero: attempting to create resource
ServiceAccount/velero: created
Secret/cloud-credentials: attempting to create resource
Secret/cloud-credentials: created
BackupStorageLocation/default: attempting to create resource
BackupStorageLocation/default: created
Deployment/velero: attempting to create resource
Deployment/velero: created
Velero is installed! ⛵ Use 'kubectl logs deployment/velero -n velero' to view the status.

Very good.

Now, we need to test it.

Create some Kubernetes resources

To test the backup procedure, let’s first create some Kubernetes resources. It doesn’t matter which resource, so I will stick to a simple one: ConfigMap. Run the following script to create an OpenShift project and many ConfigMaps:

oc new-project test-backup
for i in {1..20}; do echo Creating ConfigMap $i; oc create configmap cm-$i --from-literal="key=$i"; done

The lines above create a new project and 20 ConfigMaps. Run the following command to confirm:

oc get configmap

Back up OpenShift

Now, we can test the backup procedure. For simplicity, we are going to back up only the test-backup project, but the same concept applies to any (or all) projects. Run the following command:

velero backup create my-backup --include-namespaces test-backup

and you will see the following output:

Eduardos-MBP:velero edu$ velero backup create my-backup --include-namespaces test-backup
Backup request "my-backup" submitted successfully.
Run `velero backup describe my-backup` or `velero backup logs my-backup` for more details.

After a few seconds, you can check the backup has completed:

velero backup describe my-backup

Simulating loss

Now, let’s simulate some loss:

oc delete configmap cm-{1..20}

You can validate by running the following command:

oc get configmap

It should return no configmap:

Eduardos-MBP:velero edu$ oc get configmap
No resources found.

Restoring the environment

Let’s now restore the backup that Velero created:

velero restore create --from-backup my-backup

Now, we can check the result:

oc get cm

And you should see the 20 ConfigMaps restored. Awesome!

Conclusion

In this blog, I showed how to install and use Velero to back up and restore an OpenShift environment.

Velero makes really simple to back up the etcd data and the Persistent Volumes to an S3 Bucket.

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