Configure PVC snapshots on Amazon EKS¶

This tutorial walks you through setting up PVC snapshots for Percona Operator for PostgreSQL on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS). EKS has specific requirements that differ from other Kubernetes providers such as GKE.

For a high-level explanation of PVC snapshots, see the PVC snapshot support chapter.

Prerequisites¶

To proceed with the setup, ensure you have:

An EKS cluster (or plan to create one)
kubectl configured to access your cluster
The AWS CLI installed and configured

EKS requires specific addons, a gp3 storage class, and a matching VolumeSnapshotClass before you can use PVC snapshots.

Before you start¶

Check the prerequisites and limitations

Clone the Operator repository to be able to edit manifests:

git clone -b v2.9.0 https://github.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator

Export the namespace where you run your cluster as an environment variable:
```
export NAMESPACE=<namespace>
```

Configuration¶

Enable required EKS addons¶

EKS requires two addons for volume snapshots: the Amazon EBS CSI driver and the snapshot controller. You can enable them when you create the cluster or add them to an existing cluster.

Option A: Add addons when creating the cluster¶

If you deploy the cluster with eksctl or a similar tool, include these addons in your cluster configuration:

addons:
  - name: aws-ebs-csi-driver
    wellKnownPolicies:
      ebsCSIController: true
  - name: snapshot-controller
nodeGroups:
  - name: ng-1
    desiredCapacity: 3
    minSize: 3
    maxSize: 3

Option B: Add addons to an existing cluster¶

If your cluster already exists, enable the addons with the AWS CLI:

aws eks create-addon \
  --cluster-name <CLUSTER_NAME> \
  --addon-name aws-ebs-csi-driver \
  --resolve-conflicts OVERWRITE

aws eks create-addon \
  --cluster-name <CLUSTER_NAME> \
  --addon-name snapshot-controller

Replace <CLUSTER_NAME> with the name of your EKS cluster.

Create a gp3 storage class¶

The default gp2 storage class on EKS doesn’t support volume snapshots. You must use gp3 instead.

Create a storage class configuration file:

ebs-gp3-storage-class.yaml

apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: StorageClass
metadata:
  name: ebs-csi-gp3
provisioner: ebs.csi.aws.com
volumeBindingMode: WaitForFirstConsumer
allowVolumeExpansion: true
parameters:
  type: gp3

Apply the storage class:

kubectl apply -f ebs-gp3-storage-class.yaml

Create a VolumeSnapshotClass¶

Create a VolumeSnapshotClass configuration file:

ebs-gp3-snapshot-class.yaml

apiVersion: snapshot.storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: VolumeSnapshotClass
metadata:
  name: ebs-csi-gp3
driver: ebs.csi.aws.com
deletionPolicy: Delete

Apply the VolumeSnapshotClass:

kubectl apply -f ebs-gp3-snapshot-class.yaml

Expected output

volumesnapshotclass.snapshot.storage.k8s.io/ebs-csi-gp3 created

Enable the feature gate¶

If you have the Operator Deployment up and running, you can edit the deploy/operator.yaml manifest. If you deploy the Operator from scratch, edit the deploy/bundle.yaml manifest.

Edit the deploy/operator.yaml or deploy/bundle.yaml and set the PGO_FEATURE_GATES environment variable for the Operator Deployment to "BackupSnapshots=true":

spec:
  containers:
  - name: percona-postgresql-operator
    env:
    - name: PGO_FEATURE_GATES
      value: "BackupSnapshots=true"

Apply the configuration:

kubectl apply -f deploy/operator.yaml -n $NAMESPACE

or

kubectl apply --server-side -f deploy/bundle.yaml -n $NAMESPACE

Configure PVC snapshots in your cluster¶

You must reference the VolumeSnapshotClass in your cluster Custom Resource.

Check the name of the VolumeSnapshotClass that works with your storage. You can list available classes with:
```
kubectl get volumesnapshotclasses
```

Edit the deploy/cr.yaml Custom Resource. Reference the Storage Class you created in the spec.instances.[]dataVolumeClaimSpec.storageClassName option. The Operator then uses this storage class when it creates the cluster.

Here’s the example configuration:

spec:
  instances:
  - name: instance1
    dataVolumeClaimSpec: 
      storageClassName: ebs-csi-gp3
      accessModes:
      - ReadWriteOnce
      resources:
        requests:
          storage: 1Gi

In the Custom Resource, add the volumeSnapshots subsection under backups. Specify these keys:
- className - the name of the VolumeSnapshotClass
- mode - how to make backups. offline is currently the only supported mode.
```
spec:
  backups:
    volumeSnapshots:
      className: <name-of-your-volume-snapshot-class>
      mode: offline
```

Apply the configuration to update the cluster:

kubectl apply -f deploy/cr.yaml -n $NAMESPACE

Once configured, snapshots are created automatically when you make a manual on-demand backup or when a scheduled backup runs.

Last update: March 26, 2026
Created: March 26, 2026