Backup and restore Cassandra data
Medusa is a Cassandra backup and restore tool. It’s packaged with K8ssandra Operator and supports a variety of backends.
These instructions use a local minio bucket as an example.
Supported object storage types for backups
Supported in K8ssandra Operator’s Medusa:
- local
- s3
- s3_compatible
- s3_rgw
- azure_blobs
- google_storage
Deploying Medusa
You can deploy Medusa on all Cassandra datacenters in the cluster through the addition of the medusa section in the K8ssandraCluster definition. Example:
apiVersion: k8ssandra.io/v1alpha1
kind: K8ssandraCluster
metadata:
name: demo
spec:
cassandra:
...
...
medusa:
storageProperties:
# Can be either of local, google_storage, azure_blobs, s3, s3_compatible, s3_rgw or ibm_storage
storageProvider: s3_compatible
# Name of the secret containing the credentials file to access the backup storage backend
storageSecretRef:
name: medusa-bucket-key
# Name of the storage bucket
bucketName: k8ssandra-medusa
# Prefix for this cluster in the storage bucket directory structure, used for multitenancy
prefix: test
# Host to connect to the storage backend (Omitted for GCS, S3, Azure and local).
host: minio.minio.svc.cluster.local
# Port to connect to the storage backend (Omitted for GCS, S3, Azure and local).
port: 9000
# Region of the storage bucket
# region: us-east-1
# Whether or not to use SSL to connect to the storage backend
secure: false
# Maximum backup age that the purge process should observe.
# 0 equals unlimited
# maxBackupAge: 0
# Maximum number of backups to keep (used by the purge process).
# 0 equals unlimited
# maxBackupCount: 0
# AWS Profile to use for authentication.
# apiProfile:
# transferMaxBandwidth: 50MB/s
# Number of concurrent uploads.
# Helps maximizing the speed of uploads but puts more pressure on the network.
# Defaults to 1.
# concurrentTransfers: 1
# File size in bytes over which cloud specific cli tools are used for transfer.
# Defaults to 100 MB.
# multiPartUploadThreshold: 104857600
# Age after which orphan sstables can be deleted from the storage backend.
# Protects from race conditions between purge and ongoing backups.
# Defaults to 10 days.
# backupGracePeriodInDays: 10
# Pod storage settings to use for local storage (testing only)
# podStorage:
# storageClassName: standard
# accessModes:
# - ReadWriteOnce
# size: 100Mi
The definition above requires a secret named medusa-bucket-key to be created in the target namespace before the K8ssandraCluster object gets created. Use the following format for this secret:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: medusa-bucket-key
type: Opaque
stringData:
# Note that this currently has to be set to credentials!
credentials: |-
[default]
aws_access_key_id = minio_key
aws_secret_access_key = minio_secret
The file should always specify credentials as shown in the example above; in that section, provide the expected format and credential values that are expected by Medusa for the chosen storage backend. For more, refer to the Medusa documentation to know which file format should used for each supported storage backend.
A successful deployment should inject a new init container named medusa-restore and a new container named medusa in the Cassandra StatefulSet pods.
Creating a Backup
To perform a backup of a Cassandra datacenter, create the following custom resource in the same namespace and Kubernetes cluster as the CassandraDatacenter resource, cassandradatacenter/dc1 in this case :
apiVersion: medusa.k8ssandra.io/v1alpha1
kind: MedusaBackupJob
metadata:
name: medusa-backup1
spec:
cassandraDatacenter: dc1
Checking Backup Completion
K8ssandra Operator will detect the MedusaBackupJob object creation and trigger a backup asynchronously.
To monitor the backup completion, check if the finishTime is set in the MedusaBackupJob object status. Example:
% kubectl get medusabackupjob/medusa-backup1 -o yaml
kind: MedusaBackupJob
metadata:
name: medusa-backup1
spec:
cassandraDatacenter: dc1
status:
...
...
finishTime: "2022-01-06T16:34:35Z"
finished:
- demo-dc1-default-sts-0
- demo-dc1-default-sts-1
- demo-dc1-default-sts-2
startTime: "2022-01-06T16:34:30Z"
All pods having completed the backup will be in the finished list.
At the end of the backup operation, a MedusaBackup custom resource will be created with the same name as the MedusaBackupJob object. It materializes the backup locally on the Kubernetes cluster.
For a restore to be possible, a MedusaBackup object must exist.
Creating a Backup Schedule
K8ssandra-operator v1.2 introduced a new MedusaBackupSchedule CRD to manage backup schedules using a cron expression:
apiVersion: medusa.k8ssandra.io/v1alpha1
kind: MedusaBackupSchedule
metadata:
name: medusa-backup-schedule
namespace: k8ssandra-operator
spec:
backupSpec:
backupType: differential
cassandraDatacenter: dc1
cronSchedule: 30 1 * * *
disabled: false
This resource must be created in the same Kubernetes cluster and namespace as the CassandraDatacenter resource referenced in the spec, here cassandradatacenter/dc1.
The above definition would trigger a differential backup of dc1 every day at 1:30 AM. The status of the backup schedule will be updated with the last execution and next execution times:
...
status:
lastExecution: "2022-07-26T01:30:00Z"
nextSchedule: "2022-07-27T01:30:00Z"
...
The MedusaBackupJob and MedusaBackup objects will be created with the name of the MedusaBackupSchedule object as prefix and a timestamp as suffix, for example: medusa-backup-schedule-1658626200.
Restoring a Backup
To restore an existing backup for a Cassandra datacenter, create the following custom resource in the same namespace as the referenced CassandraDatacenter resource, cassandradatacenter/dc1 in this case :
apiVersion: medusa.k8ssandra.io/v1alpha1
kind: MedusaRestoreJob
metadata:
name: restore-backup1
namespace: k8ssandra-operator
spec:
cassandraDatacenter: dc1
backup: medusa-backup1
The spec.backup value should match the MedusaBackup metadata.name value.
Once the K8ssandra Operator detects on the MedusaRestoreJob object creation, it will orchestrate the shutdown of all Cassandra pods, and the medusa-restore container will perform the actual data restore upon pod restart.
Checking Restore Completion
To monitor the restore completion, check if the finishTime value isn’t empty in the MedusaRestoreJob object status. Example:
% kubectl get cassandrarestore/restore-backup1 -o yaml
apiVersion: medusa.k8ssandra.io/v1alpha1
kind: MedusaRestoreJob
metadata:
name: restore-backup1
spec:
backup: medusa-backup1
cassandraDatacenter: dc1
status:
datacenterStopped: "2022-01-06T16:45:09Z"
finishTime: "2022-01-06T16:48:23Z"
restoreKey: ec5b35c1-f2fe-4465-a74f-e29aa1d467ff
restorePrepared: true
startTime: "2022-01-06T16:44:53Z"
Synchronizing MedusaBackup objects with a Medusa storage backend (S3, GCS, etc.)
In order to restore a backup taken on a different Cassandra cluster, a synchronization task must be executed to create the corresponding MedusaBackup objects locally.
This can be achieved by creating a MedusaTask custom resource in the Kubernetes cluster and namespace where the referenced CassandraDatacenter was deployed, using a sync operation:
apiVersion: medusa.k8ssandra.io/v1alpha1
kind: MedusaTask
metadata:
name: sync-backups-1
namespace: k8ssandra-operator
spec:
cassandraDatacenter: dc1
operation: sync
Such backups can come from Apache Cassandra clusters running outside of Kubernetes as well as clusters running in Kubernetes, as long as they were created using Medusa.
Warning: backups created with K8ssandra-operator v1.0 and K8ssandra up to v1.5 are not suitable for remote restores due to pod name resolving issues in these versions.
Reconciliation will be triggered by the MedusaTask object creation, executing the following operations:
- Backups will be listed in the remote storage system
- Backups missing locally will be created
- Backups missing in the remote storage system will be deleted locally
Upon completion, the MedusaTask object status will be updated with the finish time and the name of the pod which was used to communicate with the storage backend:
...
status:
finishTime: '2022-07-26T08:15:55Z'
finished:
- podName: demo-dc2-default-sts-0
startTime: '2022-07-26T08:15:54Z'
...
Purging backups
Medusa has two settings to control the retention of backups: max_backup_age and max_backup_count.
These settings are used by the medusa purge operation to determine which backups to delete.
In order to trigger a purge, a MedusaTask custom resource should be created in the same Kubernetes cluster and namespace where the referenced CassandraDatacenter was created, using the purge operation:
apiVersion: medusa.k8ssandra.io/v1alpha1
kind: MedusaTask
metadata:
name: purge-backups-1
namespace: k8ssandra-operator
spec:
cassandraDatacenter: dc1
operation: purge
The purge operation will be scheduled on all Cassandra pods in the datacenter and apply Medusa’s purge rules.
Once the purge finishes, the MedusaTask object status will be updated with the finish time and the purge stats of each Cassandra pod:
status:
finishTime: '2022-07-26T08:42:33Z'
finished:
- nbBackupsPurged: 3
nbObjectsPurged: 814
podName: demo-dc2-default-sts-1
totalObjectsWithinGcGrace: 542
totalPurgedSize: 10770961
- nbBackupsPurged: 3
nbObjectsPurged: 852
podName: demo-dc2-default-sts-2
totalObjectsWithinGcGrace: 520
totalPurgedSize: 10787447
- nbBackupsPurged: 3
nbObjectsPurged: 808
podName: demo-dc2-default-sts-0
totalObjectsWithinGcGrace: 444
totalPurgedSize: 10903221
startTime: '2022-07-26T08:37:48Z'
A sync task will then be generated by the purge task to delete the purged backups from the local Kubernetes storage.
In order to schedule purge tasks, a CronJob resource using the following template can be used:
apiVersion: batch/v1beta1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
name: k8ssandra-medusa-backup
namespace: k8ssandra-operator
spec:
schedule: "0 0 * * *"
jobTemplate:
spec:
template:
metadata:
name: k8ssandra-medusa-backup
spec:
serviceAccountName: medusa-backup
containers:
- name: medusa-backup-cronjob
image: bitnami/kubectl:1.17.3
imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
command:
- 'bin/bash'
- '-c'
- 'printf "apiVersion: medusa.k8ssandra.io/v1alpha1\nkind: MedusaTask\nmetadata:\n name: purge-backups-timestamp\n namespace: k8ssandra-operator\nspec:\n cassandraDatacenter: dc1\n operation: purge" | sed "s/timestamp/$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)/g" | kubectl apply -f -'
restartPolicy: OnFailure
The above CronJob will be scheduled to run every day at midnight, and trigger a MedusaTask object creation to purge the backups.
Deprecation Notice
The CassandraBackup and CassandraRestore CRDs are deprecated in K8ssandra-operator v1.1 and will be removed in a future version of the operator.
Next steps
See the Custom Resource Definition (CRD) reference topics.
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