Backing up a Kubernetes Cluster

Configuring backup for your Kubernetes cluster is an important step when setting up a cluster. Even if you aren't storing important data (like on a dev or testing cluster), backups will help to easily roll your Kubernetes configuration back to a previous configuration if an administrator makes a mistake.

Velero

Velero is the leading backup solution for Kubernetes. It supports backing up the entire state of a Kubernetes cluster, including the state of the objects in the cluster, and the contents of volumes, to any object storage provider.

Basic Velero Setup

First, the Velero command line interface needs to be installed on your development machine. To get a basic an effective backup for the Kubernetes cluster, there are a couple of configuration options that need to be set.

Install Velero

1. Follow the steps in Basic Install to install Velero on the machine used to control the Kubernetes cluster (your laptop).
2. Create a cloud storage bucket and credentials that can only access that bucket. Put these credentials into a file:
   credentials-velero

   [default]
   aws_access_key_id = minio
   aws_secret_access_key = minio123
   

3. Install Velero

   velero install --features=EnableCSI --use-node-agent \
   --provider aws \
   --use-volume-snapshots=true \
   --bucket <your-bucket> \
   --plugins velero/velero-plugin-for-aws:v1.10.0 \
   --secret-file ./credentials-velero \
   --kubeconfig ~/.kube/config \
   --backup-location-config region=nl-ams,s3Url=https://s3.nl-ams.scw.cloud
   

   If you're using a provider other than AWS, add these options to the backup location config --backup-location-config region=nl-ams,s3Url=https://s3.nl-ams.scw.cloud

See Also

• Velero
• Velero Documentation