You can back up and recover Harness Virtual Machine On-Prem using KOTS snapshots.
KOTS has documented snapshots extensively in Snapshots.
This topic provides a summary of the backup and recovery steps involved, and provides details on storage and Virtual Machine On-Prem version requirements.
Snapshots are stored in an AWS S3 bucket or AWS S3-compatible storage (Harness recommends either), or in Internal Storage.
You will select and set up the storage option before creating a snapshot. This setup is described below.
Velero is Already Installed
Velero is installed and configured automatically in Harness Virtual Machine On-Prem installations. You do not have to install it.
Step 1: Choose Storage Destination
You have the following options for snapshot storage:
AWS S3 bucket
AWS S3-compatible storage
Internal Storage
Harness recommends using an S3 bucket or S3-compatible storage to accommodate large files.
A Harness Virtual Machine On-Prem Production installation has a minimum disk space requirement of 400G, so there should be enough space for Internal Storage. Still, Harness recommends an S3 bucket or S3-compatible storage to avoid any issues.
Log into the Harness Virtual Machine On-Prem KOTS admin tool.
Click Snapshots.
Click Settings & Schedule.
In Storage, select the storage method to use.
For Amazon S3 and Other S3-Compatible Storage, enter in the location and credentials. For details on these settings, see Compatible Backend Stores from KOTS.
Click Update storage settings. The settings are updated.
Now that you have storage for your snapshots, you can create the snapshots.
Step 2: Create Full or Partial Snapshots
In the KOTS admin tool, click Full Snapshots (Instance) or Partial Snapshots (Application).
Click Start a snapshot. The snapshot begins. You can see its progress:
Click the more options (︙) button. The details of the snapshot appear.
That's it! You now have a snapshot you can use for recovery.
Option: Automating Snapshots
Scheduling snapshots is covered in the KOTS Schedules documentation. Here is a summary of the steps:
To automate snapshots, click Settings & Schedule.
Select Full snapshots or Partial snapshots.
Select Enable automatic scheduled snapshots.
In Schedule, select the schedule for the snapshot.
In Retention policy, define how long to keep snapshots.
The retention policy is described by KOTS:
The default retention period for snapshots is 1 month. Setting the retention only affects snapshots created after the time of the change. For example, if an existing snapshot had a retention of 1 year and is already 6 months old, and a user then uses the UI to change the retention to 1 month, the existing snapshot will still be around for another 6 months.
Click Update schedule. The schedule is updated. To disable it, deselect Enable automatic scheduled snapshots.
Option: Restore from a Full Snapshot
You can perform a full or partial restore from a Full Snapshot. This is why KOTS recommends Full Snapshots.
Click Full Snapshots (Instance).
Click the restore button.Restore from backup appears.
Select Full restore or Partial restore.
For Full restore, do the following:
Copy the provided command and run it on any master node. You might need to log into the admin tool again after the restore.
Click Ok, got it.
For Partial restore, do the following:
Enter the slug harness.
Click Confirm and restore. You might need to log into the admin tool again after the restore.
Option: Restore from a Partial Snapshot
You can perform a partial restore using a Full or Partial Snapshot. The Full Snapshot steps are described above.
Click Partial snapshots.
Click the restore button.Restore from Partial backup (Application) appears.
Enter the slug harness.
Click Confirm and restore. You might need to log into the admin tool again after the restore.
Notes
See the KOTS documentation for more details on backup and recovery settings.
