Introduction

The operator allows you to create a simple schedule and/or manually initiate BackupRuns to back up or restore any data you need. You define the script for backup and restoration yourself, while the operator takes care of compression, encryption, rotation, and storage.

Concept

There are a core ideas that operator follows.

1. We can backup and restore anything, user defines the script for backup/restoration
2. We do not need backups of volumes or VMs, only data
3. We have to be able to perform both backup and restoration from a standard Docker image
4. Operator must not store any intermediate data and have to stream all the data in/out the storage
5. There have to be a Pod per backup, no execs to running Pods with actual databases

Backup flow

1. Operator creates a Pod where exec will be executed
2. Backup command in executed: stdin and stderr are ignored, stdout is grabbed as a data
3. Operator compresses the data with gzip in stream
4. Compresses stream is encrypted with age
5. Result stream is uploaded to the file in the S3 storage
6. Operator kills the Pod

Restore flow

1. Operator creates a Pod where exec will be executed
2. Operator reads file from the storage
3. Decryption of the stream
4. Decompression of the stream
5. Restore command in executed: stdout and stderr are ignored, stdin is provided with plain data
6. Operator kills the Pod once the backup command ends

Example

apiVersion: backup-operator.io/v1
kind: BackupStorage
metadata:
  name: minio
spec:
  type: s3
  parameters:
    bucket: backups
    endpoint: http://minio.minio.svc:9000
    insecure: 'true'
    s3ForcePathStyle: 'true'
  credentials:
    name: minio-credentials
    namespace: minio

You define all commands yourself, so operator can backup anything you want.

apiVersion: backup-operator.io/v1
kind: BackupSchedule
metadata:
  name: mysql-daily
spec:
  schedule: "0 0 * * *"
  concurrencyPolicy: Replace
  successfulRunsHistoryLimit: 14
  failedRunsHistoryLimit: 2
  template:
    spec:
      retainPolicy: Delete
      storage:
        name: minio
        # Path is templated with http://masterminds.github.io/sprig/
        path: /backups/mysql-{{ now | date "2006.01.02-15:04:05" }}.sql
      # Command for pod exec for making a backup
      backup:
        deadlineSeconds: 300
        container: mysql
        command: ["/bin/sh", "-c"]
        args:
        - mysqldump -h "${HOSTNAME}" -u "${USERNAME}" "-p${PASSWORD}" "${DATABASE}"
      # Command for pod exec for making a restoration
      restore:
        deadlineSeconds: 300
        container: mysql
        command: ["/bin/sh", "-c"]
        args:
        # Backup data will be passed to STDIN
        - mysql -h "${HOSTNAME}" -u "${USERNAME}" "-p${PASSWORD}" "${DATABASE}"
      template:
        spec:
          restartPolicy: Never
          containers:
          - name: mysql
            image: mysql:8.3.0
            command: ["sleep", "1d"]
            env:
            - name: HOSTNAME
              value: mysql.development
            - name: DATABASE
              value: backend_db
            - name: USERNAME
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: mysql-credentials
                  key: username
            - name: PASSWORD
              valueFrom:
                secretKeyRef:
                  name: mysql-credentials
                  key: password