vmbackup

vmbackup

vmbackup creates VictoriaMetrics data backups from instant snapshots.

Supported storage systems for backups:

• GCS. Example: gcs://<bucket>/<path/to/backup>
• S3. Example: s3://<bucket>/<path/to/backup>
• Local filesystem. Example: fs://</absolute/path/to/backup>

Incremental backups and full backups are supported. Incremental backups are created automatically if the destination path already contains data from the previous backup. Full backups can be sped up with -origin pointing to already existing backup on the same remote storage. In this case vmbackup makes server-side copy for the shared data between the existing backup and new backup. This saves time and costs on data transfer.

Backup process can be interrupted at any time. It is automatically resumed from the interruption point when restarting vmbackup with the same args.

Backed up data can be restored with vmrestore.

See this article for more details.

Use cases

Regular backups

Regular backup can be performed with the following command:

vmbackup -storageDataPath=</path/to/victoria-metrics-data> -snapshotName=<local-snapshot> -dst=gcs://<bucket>/<path/to/new/backup>

• </path/to/victoria-metrics-data> - path to VictoriaMetrics data pointed by -storageDataPath command-line flag in single-node VictoriaMetrics or in cluster vmstorage. There is no need to stop VictoriaMetrics for creating backups, since they are performed from immutable instant snapshots.
• <local-snapshot> is the snapshot to backup. See how to create instant snapshots.
• <bucket> is already existing name for GCS bucket.
• <path/to/new/backup> is the destination path where new backup will be placed.

Regular backups with server-side copy from existing backup

If the destination GCS bucket already contains the previous backup at -origin path, then new backup can be sped up with the following command:

vmbackup -storageDataPath=</path/to/victoria-metrics-data> -snapshotName=<local-snapshot> -dst=gcs://<bucket>/<path/to/new/backup> -origin=gcs://<bucket>/<path/to/existing/backup>

This saves time and network bandwidth costs by performing server-side copy for the shared data from the -origin to -dst.

Incremental backups

Incremental backups are performed if -dst points to already existing backup. In this case only new data is uploaded to remote storage. This saves time and network bandwidth costs when working with big backups:

vmbackup -storageDataPath=</path/to/victoria-metrics-data> -snapshotName=<local-snapshot> -dst=gcs://<bucket>/<path/to/existing/backup>

Smart backups

Smart backups mean storing full daily backups into YYYYMMDD folders and creating incremental hourly backup into latest folder:

• Run the following command every hour:

vmbackup -snapshotName=<latest-snapshot> -dst=gcs://<bucket>/latest

Where <latest-snapshot> is the latest snapshot. The command will upload only changed data to gcs://<bucket>/latest.

• Run the following command once a day:

vmbackup -snapshotName=<daily-snapshot> -dst=gcs://<bucket>/<YYYYMMDD> -origin=gcs://<bucket>/latest

Where <daily-snapshot> is the snapshot for the last day <YYYYMMDD>.

This apporach saves network bandwidth costs on hourly backups (since they are incremental) and allows recovering data from either the last hour (latest backup) or from any day (YYYYMMDD backups). Note that hourly backup shouldn't run when creating daily backup.

Do not forget removing old snapshots and backups when they are no longer needed for saving storage costs.

How does it work?

The backup algorithm is the following:

1. Collect information about files in the -snapshotName, in the -dst and in the -origin.
2. Determine files in -dst, which are missing in -snapshotName, and delete them. These are usually small files, which are already merged into bigger files in the snapshot.
3. Determine files from -snapshotName, which are missing in -dst. These are usually small new files and bigger merged files.
4. Determine files from step 3, which exist in the -origin, and perform server-side copy of these files from -origin to -dst. This are usually the biggest and the oldest files, which are shared between backups.
5. Upload the remaining files from setp 3 from -snapshotName to -dst.

The algorithm splits source files into 100MB chunks in the backup. Each chunk is stored as a separate file in the backup. Such splitting minimizes the amounts of data to re-transfer after temporary errors.

vmbackup relies on instant snapshot properties:

• All the files in the snapshot are immutable.
• Old files are periodically merged into new files.
• Smaller files have higher probability to be merged.
• Consecutive snapshots share many identical files.

These properties allow performing fast and cheap incremental backups and server-side copying from -origin paths. See this article for more details. vmbackup can work improperly or slowly when these properties are violated.

Troubleshooting

• If the backup is slow, then try setting higher value for -concurrency flag. This will increase the number of concurrent workers that upload data to backup storage.
• If vmbackup eats all the network bandwidth, then set -concurrency to 1. This should reduce network bandwidth usage.
• If vmbackup has been interrupted due to temporary error, then just restart it with the same args. It will resume the backup process.

Advanced usage

Run vmbackup -help in order to see all the available options:

  -concurrency int
    	The number of concurrent workers. Higher concurrency may reduce backup duration (default 10)
  -configFilePath string
    	Path to file with S3 configs. Configs are loaded from default location if not set.
    	See https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/aws-security-credentials.html
  -credsFilePath string
    	Path to file with GCS or S3 credentials. Credentials are loaded from default locations if not set.
    	See https://cloud.google.com/iam/docs/creating-managing-service-account-keys and https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/aws-security-credentials.html
  -dst string
    	Where to put the backup on the remote storage. Example: gcs://bucket/path/to/backup/dir, s3://bucket/path/to/backup/dir or fs:///path/to/local/backup/dir
    	-dst can point to the previous backup. In this case incremental backup is performed, i.e. only changed data is uploaded
  -loggerLevel string
    	Minimum level of errors to log. Possible values: INFO, ERROR, FATAL, PANIC (default "INFO")
  -memory.allowedPercent float
    	Allowed percent of system memory VictoriaMetrics caches may occupy (default 60)
  -origin string
    	Optional origin directory on the remote storage with old backup for server-side copying when performing full backup. This speeds up full backups
  -snapshotName string
    	Name for the snapshot to backup. See https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/blob/master/README.md#how-to-work-with-snapshots
  -storageDataPath string
    	Path to VictoriaMetrics data. Must match -storageDataPath from VictoriaMetrics or vmstorage (default "victoria-metrics-data")
  -version
    	Show VictoriaMetrics version

How to build from sources

It is recommended using binary releases - see vmutils-* archives there.

Development build

1. Install Go. The minimum supported version is Go 1.12.
2. Run make vmbackup from the root folder of the repository. It builds vmbackup binary and puts it into the bin folder.

Production build

1. Install docker.
2. Run make vmbackup-prod from the root folder of the repository. It builds vmbackup-prod binary and puts it into the bin folder.

Building docker images

Run make package-vmbackup. It builds victoriametrics/vmbackup:<PKG_TAG> docker image locally. <PKG_TAG> is auto-generated image tag, which depends on source code in the repository. The <PKG_TAG> may be manually set via PKG_TAG=foobar make package-vmbackup.