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Restore Reference

The page outlines how to use the velero restore command, configuration options for restores, and describes the main process Velero uses to perform restores.

Restore command-line options

To see all commands for restores, run velero restore --help.

To see all options associated with a specific command, provide the --help flag to that command. For example, velero restore create --help shows all options associated with the create command.

  velero restore [command]

Available Commands:
  create      Create a restore
  delete      Delete restores
  describe    Describe restores
  get         Get restores
  logs        Get restore logs

Detailed Restore workflow

The following is an overview of Velero’s restore process that starts after you run velero restore create.

The Velero client makes a call to the Kubernetes API server to create a Restore object.
The RestoreController notices the new Restore object and performs validation.
The RestoreController fetches basic information about the backup being restored, like the BackupStorageLocation (BSL). It also fetches a tarball of the cluster resources in the backup, any volumes that will be restored using Restic, and any volume snapshots to be restored.
The RestoreController then extracts the tarball of backup cluster resources to the /tmp folder and performs some pre-processing on the resources, including:
- Sorting the resources to help Velero decide the restore order to use.
- Attempting to discover the resources by their Kubernetes Group Version Resource (GVR). If a resource is not discoverable, Velero will exclude it from the restore. See more about how Velero backs up API versions.
- Applying any configured resource filters.
- Verify the target namespace, if you have configured --namespace-mappings restore option.
The RestoreController begins restoring the eligible resources one at a time. Velero extracts the current resource into a Kubernetes resource object. Depending on the type of resource and restore options you specified, Velero will make the following modifications to the resource or preparations to the target cluster before attempting to create the resource:
- The RestoreController makes sure the target namespace exists. If the target namespace does not exist, then the RestoreController will create a new one on the cluster.
- If the resource is a Persistent Volume (PV), the RestoreController will rename the PV and remap its namespace.
- If the resource is a Persistent Volume Claim (PVC), the RestoreController will modify the PVC metadata.
- Execute the resource’s RestoreItemAction custom plugins, if you have configured one.
- Update the resource object’s namespace if you’ve configured namespace remapping.
- The RestoreController adds a velero.io/backup-name label with the backup name and a velero.io/restore-name with the restore name to the resource. This can help you easily identify restored resources and which backup they were restored from.
The RestoreController creates the resource object on the target cluster. If the resource is a PV then the RestoreController will restore the PV data from the durable snapshot, Restic, or CSI snapshot depending on how the PV was backed up.

If the resource already exists in the target cluster, which is determined by the Kubernetes API during resource creation, the RestoreController will skip the resource. The only exception are Service Accounts, which Velero will attempt to merge differences between the backed up ServiceAccount into the ServiceAccount on the target cluster. You can change the default existing resource restore policy to update resources instead of skipping them using the --existing-resource-policy.
Once the resource is created on the target cluster, Velero may take some additional steps or wait for additional processes to complete before moving onto the next resource to restore.
- If the resource is a Pod, the RestoreController will execute any Restore Hooks and wait for the hook to finish.
- If the resource is a PV restored by Restic, the RestoreController waits for Restic’s restore to complete. The RestoreController sets a timeout for any resources restored with Restic during a restore. The default timeout is 4 hours, but you can configure this be setting using --restic-timeout restore option.
- If the resource is a Custom Resource Definition, the RestoreController waits for its availability in the cluster. The timeout is 1 minute.
If any failures happen finishing these steps, the RestoreController will log an error in the restore result and will continue restoring.

Restore order

By default, Velero will restore resources in the following order:

Custom Resource Definitions
Namespaces
StorageClasses
VolumeSnapshotClass
VolumeSnapshotContents
VolumeSnapshots
PersistentVolumes
PersistentVolumeClaims
Secrets
ConfigMaps
ServiceAccounts
LimitRanges
Pods
ReplicaSets
Clusters
ClusterResourceSets

It’s recommended that you use the default order for your restores. You are able to customize this order if you need to by setting the --restore-resource-priorities flag on the Velero server and specifying a different resource order. This customized order will apply to all future restores. You don’t have to specify all resources in the --restore-resource-priorities flag. Velero will append resources not listed to the end of your customized list in alphabetical order.

velero server \
--restore-resource-priorities=customresourcedefinitions,namespaces,storageclasses,\
volumesnapshotclass.snapshot.storage.k8s.io,volumesnapshotcontents.snapshot.storage.k8s.io,\
volumesnapshots.snapshot.storage.k8s.io,persistentvolumes,persistentvolumeclaims,secrets,\
configmaps,serviceaccounts,limitranges,pods,replicasets.apps,clusters.cluster.x-k8s.io,\
clusterresourcesets.addons.cluster.x-k8s.io

Restoring Persistent Volumes and Persistent Volume Claims

Velero has three approaches when restoring a PV, depending on how the backup was taken.

When restoring a snapshot, Velero statically creates the PV and then binds it to a restored PVC. Velero’s PV rename and remap process is used only in this case because this is the only case where Velero creates the PV resource directly.
When restoring with Restic, Velero uses Kubernetes’ dynamic provision process to provision the PV after creating the PVC. In this case, the PV object is not actually created by Velero.
When restoring with the CSI plugin, the PV is created from a CSI snapshot by the CSI driver. Velero doesn’t create the PV directly. Instead Velero creates a PVC with its DataSource referring to the CSI VolumeSnapshot object.

Snapshot PV Restore

PV data backed up by durable snapshots is restored by VolumeSnapshot plugins. Velero calls the plugins’ interface to create a volume from a snapshot. The plugin returns the volume’s volumeID. This ID is created by storage vendors and will be updated in the PV object created by Velero, so that the PV object is connected to the volume restored from a snapshot.

Restic PV Restore

For more information on Restic restores, see the Restic integration page.

CSI PV Restore

A PV backed up by CSI snapshots is restored by the CSI plugin. This happens when restoring the PVC object that has been snapshotted by CSI. The CSI VolumeSnapshot object name is specified with the PVC during backup as the annotation velero.io/volume-snapshot-name. After validating the VolumeSnapshot object, Velero updates the PVC by adding a DataSource field and setting its value to the VolumeSnapshot name.

Persistent Volume Rename

When restoring PVs, if the PV being restored does not exist on the target cluster, Velero will create the PV using the name from the backup. Velero will rename a PV before restoring if both of the following conditions are met:

The PV already exists on the target cluster.
The PV’s claim namespace has been remapped.

If both conditions are met, Velero will create the PV with a new name. The new name is the prefix velero-clone- and a random UUID. Velero also preserves the original name of the PV by adding an annotation velero.io/original-pv-name to the restored PV object.

If you attempt to restore the PV’s referenced PVC into its original namespace without remapping the namespace, Velero will not rename the PV. If a PV’s referenced PVC exists already for that namespace, the restored PV creation attempt will fail, with an Already Exist error from the Kubernetes API Server.

PVC Restore

PVC objects are created the same way as other Kubernetes resources during a restore, with some specific changes:

For a dynamic binding PVCs, Velero removes the fields related to bindings from the PVC object. This enables the default Kubernetes dynamic binding process to be used for this PVC. The fields include:
- volumeName
- pv.kubernetes.io/bind-completed annotation
- pv.kubernetes.io/bound-by-controller annotation
For a PVC that is bound by Velero Restore, if the target PV has been renamed by the PV restore process, the RestoreController renames the volumeName field of the PVC object.

Changing PV/PVC Storage Classes

Velero can change the storage class of persistent volumes and persistent volume claims during restores. To configure a storage class mapping, create a config map in the Velero namespace like the following:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  # any name can be used; Velero uses the labels (below)
  # to identify it rather than the name
  name: change-storage-class-config
  # must be in the velero namespace
  namespace: velero
  # the below labels should be used verbatim in your
  # ConfigMap.
  labels:
    # this value-less label identifies the ConfigMap as
    # config for a plugin (i.e. the built-in restore item action plugin)
    velero.io/plugin-config: ""
    # this label identifies the name and kind of plugin
    # that this ConfigMap is for.
    velero.io/change-storage-class: RestoreItemAction
data:
  # add 1+ key-value pairs here, where the key is the old
  # storage class name and the value is the new storage
  # class name.
  <old-storage-class>: <new-storage-class>

Changing PVC selected-node

Velero can update the selected-node annotation of persistent volume claim during restores, if selected-node doesn’t exist in the cluster then it will remove the selected-node annotation from PersistentVolumeClaim. To configure a node mapping, create a config map in the Velero namespace like the following:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  # any name can be used; Velero uses the labels (below)
  # to identify it rather than the name
  name: change-pvc-node-selector-config
  # must be in the velero namespace
  namespace: velero
  # the below labels should be used verbatim in your
  # ConfigMap.
  labels:
    # this value-less label identifies the ConfigMap as
    # config for a plugin (i.e. the built-in restore item action plugin)
    velero.io/plugin-config: ""
    # this label identifies the name and kind of plugin
    # that this ConfigMap is for.
    velero.io/change-pvc-node-selector: RestoreItemAction
data:
  # add 1+ key-value pairs here, where the key is the old
  # node name and the value is the new node name.
  <old-node-name>: <new-node-name>

Restoring into a different namespace

Velero can restore resources into a different namespace than the one they were backed up from. To do this, use the --namespace-mappings flag:

velero restore create <RESTORE_NAME> \
  --from-backup <BACKUP_NAME> \
  --namespace-mappings old-ns-1:new-ns-1,old-ns-2:new-ns-2

For example, A Persistent Volume object has a reference to the Persistent Volume Claim’s namespace in the field Spec.ClaimRef.Namespace. If you specify that Velero should remap the target namespace during the restore, Velero will change the Spec.ClaimRef.Namespace field on the PV object from old-ns-1 to new-ns-1.

Restore existing resource policy

By default, Velero is configured to be non-destructive during a restore. This means that it will never overwrite data that already exists in your cluster. When Velero attempts to create a resource during a restore, the resource being restored is compared to the existing resources on the target cluster by the Kubernetes API Server. If the resource already exists in the target cluster, Velero skips restoring the current resource and moves onto the next resource to restore, without making any changes to the target cluster.

An exception to the default restore policy is ServiceAccounts. When restoring a ServiceAccount that already exists on the target cluster, Velero will attempt to merge the fields of the ServiceAccount from the backup into the existing ServiceAccount. Secrets and ImagePullSecrets are appended from the backed-up ServiceAccount. Velero adds any non-existing labels and annotations from the backed-up ServiceAccount to the existing resource, leaving the existing labels and annotations in place.

You can change this policy for a restore by using the --existing-resource-policy restore flag. The available options are none (default) and update. If you choose to update existing resources during a restore (--existing-resource-policy=update), Velero will attempt to update an existing resource to match the resource being restored:

If the existing resource in the target cluster is the same as the resource Velero is attempting to restore, Velero will add a velero.io/backup-name label with the backup name and a velero.io/restore-name label with the restore name to the existing resource. If patching the labels fails, Velero adds a restore error and continues restoring the next resource.
If the existing resource in the target cluster is different from the backup, Velero will first try to patch the existing resource to match the backup resource. If the patch is successful, Velero will add a velero.io/backup-name label with the backup name and a velero.io/restore-name label with the restore name to the existing resource. If the patch fails, Velero adds a restore warning and tries to add the velero.io/backup-name and velero.io/restore-name labels on the resource. If the labels patch also fails, then Velero logs a restore error and continues restoring the next resource.

You can also configure the existing resource policy in a Restore object.

Removing a Restore object

There are two ways to delete a Restore object:

Deleting with velero restore delete will delete the Custom Resource representing the restore, along with its individual log and results files. It will not delete any objects that were created by the restore in your cluster.
Deleting with kubectl -n velero delete restore will delete the Custom Resource representing the restore. It will not delete restore log or results files from object storage, or any objects that were created during the restore in your cluster.

What happens to NodePorts when restoring Services

During a restore, Velero deletes Auto assigned NodePorts by default and Services get new auto assigned nodePorts after restore.

Velero auto detects explicitly specified NodePorts using last-applied-config annotation and they are preserved after restore. NodePorts can be explicitly specified as .spec.ports[*].nodePort field on Service definition.

Always Preserve NodePorts

It is not always possible to set nodePorts explicitly on some big clusters because of operational complexity. As the Kubernetes NodePort documentation states, “if you want a specific port number, you can specify a value in the nodePort field. The control plane will either allocate you that port or report that the API transaction failed. This means that you need to take care of possible port collisions yourself. You also have to use a valid port number, one that’s inside the range configured for NodePort use.”"

The clusters which are not explicitly specifying nodePorts may still need to restore original NodePorts in the event of a disaster. Auto assigned nodePorts are typically defined on Load Balancers located in front of cluster. Changing all these nodePorts on Load Balancers is another operation complexity you are responsible for updating after disaster if nodePorts are changed.

Use the velero restore create command’s --preserve-nodeports flag to preserve Service nodePorts always, regardless of whether nodePorts are explicitly specified or not. This flag is used for preserving the original nodePorts from a backup and can be used as --preserve-nodeports or --preserve-nodeports=true. If this flag is present, Velero will not remove the nodePorts when restoring a Service, but will try to use the nodePorts from the backup.

Trying to preserve nodePorts may cause port conflicts when restoring on situations below:

If the nodePort from the backup is already allocated on the target cluster then Velero prints error log as shown below and continues the restore operation.

time="2020-11-23T12:58:31+03:00" level=info msg="Executing item action for services" logSource="pkg/restore/restore.go:1002" restore=velero/test-with-3-svc-20201123125825

time="2020-11-23T12:58:31+03:00" level=info msg="Restoring Services with original NodePort(s)" cmd=_output/bin/linux/amd64/velero logSource="pkg/restore/service_action.go:61" pluginName=velero restore=velero/test-with-3-svc-20201123125825

time="2020-11-23T12:58:31+03:00" level=info msg="Attempting to restore Service: hello-service" logSource="pkg/restore/restore.go:1107" restore=velero/test-with-3-svc-20201123125825

time="2020-11-23T12:58:31+03:00" level=error msg="error restoring hello-service: Service \"hello-service\" is invalid: spec.ports[0].nodePort: Invalid value: 31536: provided port is already allocated" logSource="pkg/restore/restore.go:1170" restore=velero/test-with-3-svc-20201123125825

If the nodePort from the backup is not in the nodePort range of target cluster then Velero prints error log as below and continues with the restore operation. Kubernetes default nodePort range is 30000-32767 but on the example cluster nodePort range is 20000-22767 and tried to restore Service with nodePort 31536.

time="2020-11-23T13:09:17+03:00" level=info msg="Executing item action for services" logSource="pkg/restore/restore.go:1002" restore=velero/test-with-3-svc-20201123130915

time="2020-11-23T13:09:17+03:00" level=info msg="Restoring Services with original NodePort(s)" cmd=_output/bin/linux/amd64/velero logSource="pkg/restore/service_action.go:61" pluginName=velero restore=velero/test-with-3-svc-20201123130915

time="2020-11-23T13:09:17+03:00" level=info msg="Attempting to restore Service: hello-service" logSource="pkg/restore/restore.go:1107" restore=velero/test-with-3-svc-20201123130915

time="2020-11-23T13:09:17+03:00" level=error msg="error restoring hello-service: Service \"hello-service\" is invalid: spec.ports[0].nodePort: Invalid value: 31536: provided port is not in the valid range. The range of valid ports is 20000-22767" logSource="pkg/restore/restore.go:1170" restore=velero/test-with-3-svc-20201123130915

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