Use Tanzu Mission Control to restore the results of a backup operation from one cluster into another cluster.

Prerequisites

Before restoring a backup from one cluster into a different cluster, read about considerations for backup restoration between different clusters in Data Protection in VMware Tanzu Mission Control Concepts.

This procedure makes the following assumptions:
  • You have a (source) cluster on which you have already performed at least one backup operation.
  • You have another (target) cluster into which you want to restore the backup.
  • Both clusters are managed by Tanzu Mission Control.
  • You have enabled data protection on both clusters.
  • The target location of the backup in the source cluster is accessible to the target cluster.
  • The target cluster does not already contain a backup with the same name as the backup you want to restore from the source cluster.
Make sure you have the appropriate permissions.
  • To restore a backup across different clusters, you must be associated with the cluster.admin role in both the source cluster and the target cluster.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the Tanzu Mission Control console, and then navigate to the cluster detail page for the target cluster in which to restore the backup.
  2. Click the Data Protection tab.
    The Backups list on the Data Protection tab shows the backups that have been created in this cluster.
  3. In the Backups section, above the list, click Restore another cluster backup.
  4. Select the source cluster that contains the backup you want to restore.
    The dropdown list shows the clusters to which you have access that contain backups. The target location of the backup in the source cluster must be accessible to the target cluster.
  5. Click to select the backup you want to restore, and then click Next.
  6. Specify what you want to restore from the selected backup.
    • the entire backup
    • selected namespaces
    • resources identified by a label selector
  7. If you choose to restore selected namespaces, you can optionally modify the target namespace to which you want to restore.
    1. Select the namespace you want to restore.
    2. Click the name of the target namespace.
    3. In the Specify target namespace dialog, select the namespace to which you want to restore. You can optionally create a new namespace by entering a name for it.
      The name you provide can consist of lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens.
    4. Click Confirm.
  8. You can optionally choose to include or exclude specific resources and to exclude namespaces.
    1. Click Advanced options.
    2. Enter the name of the resource you want to exclude, and then click Add. Repeat this step to exclude multiple resources.
      Note: TKG clusters come with Antrea installed, which includes a webhook that prevents certain Antrea-related resources from being updated. This may cause the overall restore to complete with a partially failed status. This can be avoided by configuring the restore to exclude the problematic resources tiers.crd.antrea.io and tiers.security.antrea.tanzu.vmware.com.
    3. You can opt to select Include cluster-scoped resources. If set, cluster-scoped (i.e., non-namespaced) resources, such as CustomResourceDefinition and ClusterRoles, will be restored if the backup has cluster-scoped resources captured. By default, cluster-scoped resources are restored if you opt to restore the entire backup or resources identified by a label selector option.
    4. You can also select Update existing resource. If this is set, resources on the cluster will be overwritten (via patch) by the corresponding resources present in the backup (if they exist). By default, an existing resource in the cluster will not be modified even if it differs from its counterpart in the backup.
    5. You can optionally Exclude namespaces. Specify a list of namespaces that will not be included in the restore. This option is not available when restoring selected namespaces.
  9. You can optionally choose to restore CSI volumes that were backed up.
    In the Persistent volumes to restore section, all FSB backed up volumes are listed and will be restored.
    Note: Restoring CSI volumes across different cloud providers is supported if you moved the CSI snapshots to the backup target location during the backup operation.
  10. You can optionally define restore hooks by expanding the Restore Hooks section and defining restore hooks.
    1. Click Add a Restore hook to add a hook.
    2. Define the hook by naming it, and then specifying namespaces and/or label selector by defining the key, operator, and value. The hook will be applied to the pods based on specified namespace and/or label selector.
    3. Next, define the hook key, operator, and value.
    4. Next, define one or more InitContainer restore hooks and/or Exec restore hooks.
  11. Click Next.
  12. Provide a name for the restored backup.
    The name you provide can consist of lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens.
  13. Click Restore.