Making on-demand backups¶

An on-demand backup is a backup that you start manually at any time. You create a Backup resource and the Operator uses it to make a backup. A backup can be any of the supported backup types.

If you want to run backups automatically, according to the schedule, see Make scheduled backups tutorial.

Here’s what you need to do to run on-demand backups:

Modify the Custom Resource manifest¶

Edit the deploy/cr.yaml configuration file and specify the following configuration:
- Set the backup.enabled key to true,
- Check that you have defined at least one configured storage in the backup.storages subsection.
Apply the changes. Don’t forget to replace the <namespace> placeholder with your namespace:
```
$ kubectl apply -f deploy/cr.yaml -n <namespace>
```

Create a Backup resource¶

To create a Backup resource, you need a special custom resource manifest. The deploy/backup/backup.yaml is the example manifest that you can use.

Specify the following configuration:
- metadata.name is the name of the backup. You will need this name when you restore from this backup. The default name is backup1.
- spec.clusterName is the name of your cluster (prior to the Operator version 1.12.0 this key was named spec.psmdbCluster). Run kubectl get psmdb -n <namespace> to find out the cluster name.
- spec.storageName is the name of your already configured storage.
- spec.type is the backup type. If you leave it empty, the Operator makes a logical backup by default.
Examples
LogicalPhysicalIncremental
apiVersion: psmdb.percona.com/v1 kind: PerconaServerMongoDBBackup metadata: finalizers: - percona.com/delete-backup name: backup1 spec: clusterName: my-cluster-name storageName: s3-us-west type: logical
apiVersion: psmdb.percona.com/v1 kind: PerconaServerMongoDBBackup metadata: finalizers: - percona.com/delete-backup name: backup1 spec: clusterName: my-cluster-name storageName: s3-us-west type: physical
To make incremental backups, consider the following:
1. Make the incremental base backup first. The Operator needs the base to start the chain of increments and save only changes from previous backup.
2. Use the same storage for base backup and increments.
3. The percona.com/delete-backup finalizer is considered for incremental base backup but is ignored for increments. This means that when a base backup is deleted, PBM deletes all increments that derive from it.
There is the limitation that the Backup resource for the base incremental backup is deleted but the Backup resources for increments remain in the Operator. This is because the Operator doesn’t control their deletion outsourcing this task to PBM. This limitation will be fixed in future releases.

Here’s the configuration example for the base incremental backup
apiVersion: psmdb.percona.com/v1 kind: PerconaServerMongoDBBackup metadata: finalizers: - percona.com/delete-backup name: backup1 spec: clusterName: my-cluster-name storageName: s3-us-west type: incremental-base
This configuration example is for subsequent incremental backups:
apiVersion: psmdb.percona.com/v1 kind: PerconaServerMongoDBBackup metadata: name: backup1 spec: clusterName: my-cluster-name storageName: s3-us-west type: incremental

Apply the backup.yaml manifest to start a backup:

$ kubectl apply -f deploy/backup/backup.yaml

You can track the backup process with the PerconaServerMongoDBBackup Custom Resource as follows:

$ kubectl get psmdb-backup

Expected output

NAME      CLUSTER           STORAGE      DESTINATION            STATUS    COMPLETED   AGE
backup1   my-cluster-name   s3-us-west   2022-09-08T03:22:19Z   running               49s

It should show the status as READY when the backup process is over.

Troubleshooting¶

If you have any issues with a backup, here’s how you can troubleshoot it:

View information about a backup:

$ kubectl describe psmdb-backup backup1

Expected output

Name:         backup1
Namespace:    my-namespace
Labels:       <none>
Annotations:  <none>
API Version:  psmdb.percona.com/v1
Kind:         PerconaServerMongoDBBackup
Metadata:
  Creation Timestamp:  2025-04-22T11:32:21Z
  Finalizers:
    percona.com/delete-backup
  Generation:        1
  Resource Version:  136319
  UID:               46670473-4fd0-465d-b944-1be3717485a0
Spec:
  Cluster Name:  my-cluster-name
  Storage Name:  gcp-cs
  Type:          incremental-base
Status:
  Completed:        2025-04-22T11:32:42Z
  Destination:      s3://my-bucket/demand-backup-incremental/2025-04-22T11:32:26Z
  Last Transition:  2025-04-22T11:32:42Z
  Pbm Name:         2025-04-22T11:32:26Z
  Pbm Pod:          my-cluster-name-rs0-2.my-cluster-name-rs0.demand-backup-incremental-10277.svc.cluster.local:27017
  Pbm Pods:
    rs0:  my-cluster-name-rs0-2.my-cluster-name-rs0.demand-backup-incremental-10277.svc.cluster.local:27017
  Replset Names:
    rs0
  s3:
    Bucket:              my-bucket
    Credentials Secret:  gcp-cs-secret
    Endpoint URL:        https://storage.googleapis.com
    Prefix:              demand-backup-incremental
    Region:              us-east-1
    Server Side Encryption:
  Start:         2025-04-22T11:32:26Z
  State:         ready
  Storage Name:  gcp-cs
  Type:          incremental-base

Check logs from the backup-agent container of the appropriate Pod as follows. Find the Pod name in the pbm Pod field in the output from the previous step. Or use the following command to get the Pod name:
```
$ kubectl get psmdb-backup -o yaml | grep pbmPod
```
Now connect to the backup-agent of this Pod:
```
$ kubectl logs pod/my-cluster-name-rs0 -c backup-agent
```
Access the same container via ssh and carry on Percona Backup for MongoDB diagnostics .

Restore to a new Kubernetes environment¶

To restore from a backup to a new Kubernetes-based environment, you must create a Secrets object there with the same user passwords as in the original cluster.

Find the Secrets name object on the source cluster in the spec.secrets key in the `deploy/cr.yaml. Use this name to recreate the Secrets on the target cluster.

Find more details about secrets in System Users.

Last update: 2025-06-17