4 Make a backup¶

Now your database contains some data, so it’s a good time to learn how to manually make a full backup of your data with the Operator.

Note

If you are interested to learn more about backups, their types and retention policy, see the Backups section.

Considerations and prerequisites¶

In this tutorial we use the AWS S3 as the backup storage. You need the following S3-related information:
- The name of S3 bucket;
- The endpoint - the URL to access the bucket
- The region - the location of the bucket
- S3 credentials such as S3 key and secret to access the storage.
If you don’t have access to AWS, you can use any S3-compatible storage like MinIO . Check the list of supported storages. Find the storage configuration instructions for each
The Operator uses the pgBackRest tool to make backups. pgBackRest stores the backups and archives WAL segments in repositories. The Operator has up to four pgBackRest repositories named repo1, repo2, repo3 and repo4. In this tutorial we use repo2 for backups.
Also, we will use some files from the Operator repository for setting up backups. So, clone the percona-postgresql-operator repository:
```
$ git clone -b v2.3.1 https://github.com/percona/percona-postgresql-operator
$ cd percona-postgresql-operator
```
Note

It is important to specify the right branch with -b option while cloning the code on this step. Please be careful.

Configure backup storage¶

Encode the S3 credentials and the pgBackRest repository name (repo2 in our setup).

Linux macOS

$ cat <<EOF | base64 --wrap=0
[global]
repo2-s3-key=<YOUR_AWS_S3_KEY>
repo2-s3-key-secret=<YOUR_AWS_S3_KEY_SECRET>
EOF

$ cat <<EOF | base64
[global]
repo2-s3-key=<YOUR_AWS_S3_KEY>
repo2-s3-key-secret=<YOUR_AWS_S3_KEY_SECRET>
EOF

Create the Secret configuration file and specify the base64-encoded string from the previous step. The following is the example of the cluster1-pgbackrest-secrets.yaml Secret file:
```
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: cluster1-pgbackrest-secrets
type: Opaque
data:
  s3.conf: <base64-encoded-configuration-contents>
```
Create the Secrets object from this yaml file. Specify your namespace instead of the <namespace> placeholder:
```
$ kubectl apply -f cluster1-pgbackrest-secrets.yaml -n <namespace>
```
Update your deploy/cr.yaml configuration. Specify the Secret file you created in the backups.pgbackrest.configuration subsection, and put all other S3 related information in the backups.pgbackrest.repos subsection under the repository name that you intend to use for backups. This name must match the name you used when you encoded S3 credentials on step 1.

For example, the S3 storage for the repo2 repository looks as follows:
```
...
backups:
  pgbackrest:
    ...
    configuration:
      - secret:
          name: cluster1-pgbackrest-secrets
    ...
    repos:
    - name: repo2
      s3:
        bucket: "<YOUR_AWS_S3_BUCKET_NAME>"
        endpoint: "<YOUR_AWS_S3_ENDPOINT>"
        region: "<YOUR_AWS_S3_REGION>"
```
Create or update the cluster. Specify your namespace instead of the <namespace> placeholder:
```
$ kubectl apply -f deploy/cr.yaml
```

Make a backup¶

For manual backups, you need a backup configuration file.

Edit the example backup configuration file deploy/backup.yaml . Specify your cluster name and the repo name.

apiVersion: pgv2.percona.com/v2
kind: PerconaPGBackup
metadata:
  name: backup1
spec:
  pgCluster: cluster2
  repoName: repo1
#  options:
#  - --type=full

Apply the configuration. This instructs the Operator to start a backup.
```
$ kubectl apply -f deploy/backup.yaml -n <namespace>
```
List the backup
```
$ kubectl get pg-backup -n <namespace>
```

Congratulations! You have made the first backup manually. Want to learn more about backups? See the Backup and restore section for details like types, retention and how to automatically make backups according to the schedule.

Next steps¶

Monitor the database

Get expert help¶

If you need assistance, visit the community forum for comprehensive and free database knowledge, or contact our Percona Database Experts for professional support and services. Join K8S Squad to benefit from early access to features and “ask me anything” sessions with the Experts.

Community Forum Get a Percona Expert Join K8S Squad

Last update: 2024-04-17