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Backup and restore cluster
1 - Backup cluster
We strongly advise performing regular cluster backups of all the EKS Anywhere clusters. This ensures that you always have an up-to-date cluster state available for restoration in case the cluster experiences issues or becomes unrecoverable. This document outlines the steps for creating the two essential types of backups required for the EKS Anywhere cluster restore process .
Etcd backup
For optimal cluster maintenance, it is crucial to perform regular etcd backups on all your EKS Anywhere management and workload clusters. Always take an etcd backup before performing an upgrade so it can be used to restore the cluster to a previous state in the event of a cluster upgrade failure. To create an etcd backup for your cluster, follow the guidelines provided in the External etcd backup and restore section.
Cluster API backup
Since cluster failures primarily occur following unsuccessful cluster upgrades, EKS Anywhere takes the proactive step of automatically creating backups for the Cluster API objects. For the management cluster, it captures the states of both the management cluster and its workload clusters if all the clusters are in ready state. If one of the workload clusters is not ready, EKS Anywhere takes the best effort to backup the management cluster itself. For the workload cluster, it captures the state workload cluster’s Cluster API objects. These backups are stored within the management cluster folder, where the upgrade command is initiated from the Admin machine, and are generated before each management and/or workload cluster upgrade process.
For example, after executing a cluster upgrade command on mgmt-cluster
, a backup folder is generated with the naming convention of mgmt-cluster-backup-${timestamp}
:
mgmt-cluster/
├── mgmt-cluster-backup-2023-10-11T02_55_56 <------ Folder with a backup of the CAPI objects
├── mgmt-cluster-eks-a-cluster.kubeconfig
├── mgmt-cluster-eks-a-cluster.yaml
└── generated
For workload cluster, a backup folder is generated with the naming convention of wkld-cluster-backup-${timestamp}
under mgmt-cluster
directory
mgmt-cluster/
├── wkld-cluster-backup-2023-10-11T02_55_56 <------ Folder with a backup of the CAPI objects
├── mgmt-cluster-eks-a-cluster.kubeconfig
├── mgmt-cluster-eks-a-cluster.yaml
└── generated
Although the likelihood of a cluster failure occurring without any associated cluster upgrade operation is relatively low, it is still recommended to manually back up these Cluster API objects on a routine basis. For example, to create a Cluster API backup of a cluster:
MGMT_CLUSTER="mgmt"
MGMT_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG=${MGMT_CLUSTER}/${MGMT_CLUSTER}-eks-a-cluster.kubeconfig
BACKUP_DIRECTORY=backup-mgmt
# Substitute the EKS Anywhere release version with whatever CLI version you are using
EKSA_RELEASE_VERSION=v0.21.0
BUNDLE_MANIFEST_URL=$(curl -s https://anywhere-assets.eks.amazonaws.com/releases/eks-a/manifest.yaml | yq ".spec.releases[] | select(.version==\"$EKSA_RELEASE_VERSION\").bundleManifestUrl")
CLI_TOOLS_IMAGE=$(curl -s $BUNDLE_MANIFEST_URL | yq ".spec.versionsBundles[0].eksa.cliTools.uri")
docker run -i --network host -w $(pwd) -v $(pwd):/$(pwd) --entrypoint clusterctl ${CLI_TOOLS_IMAGE} move \
--namespace eksa-system \
--kubeconfig $MGMT_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG \
--to-directory ${BACKUP_DIRECTORY}
This saves the Cluster API objects of the management cluster mgmt
with all its workload clusters, to a local directory under the backup-mgmt
folder.
2 - Restore cluster
In certain unfortunate circumstances, an EKS Anywhere cluster may find itself in an unrecoverable state due to various factors such as a failed cluster upgrade, underlying infrastructure problems, or network issues, rendering the cluster inaccessible through conventional means. This document outlines detailed steps to guide you through the process of restoring a failed cluster from backups in these critical situations.
Prerequisite
Always backup your EKS Anywhere cluster. Refer to the Backup cluster and make sure you have the updated etcd and Cluster API backup at hand.
Restore a management cluster
As an EKS Anywhere management cluster contains the management components of itself, plus all the workload clusters it manages, the restoration process can be more complicated than just restoring all the objects from the etcd backup. To be more specific, all the core EKS Anywhere and Cluster API custom resources, that manage the lifecycle (provisioning, upgrading, operating, etc.) of the management and its workload clusters, are stored in the management cluster. This includes all the supporting infrastructure, like virtual machines, networks and load balancers. For example, after a failed cluster upgrade, the infrastructure components can change after the etcd backup was taken. Since the backup does not contain the new state of the half upgraded cluster, simply restoring it can create virtual machines UUID and IP mismatches, rendering EKS Anywhere incapable of healing the cluster.
Depending on whether the infrastructure components are changed or not after the etcd backup was taken (for example, if machines are rolled out and recreated and new IP addresses assigned to the machines), different strategy needs to be applied in order to restore the management cluster.
Cluster accessible and the infrastructure components not changed after etcd backup was taken
If the management cluster is still accessible through the API server, and the underlying infrastructure layer (nodes, machines, VMs, etc.) are not changed after the etcd backup was taken, simply follow the External etcd backup and restore to restore the management cluster itself from the backup.
Warning
Do not apply the etcd restore unless you are very sure that the infrastructure layer is not changed after the etcd backup was taken. In other words, the nodes, machines, VMs, and their assigned IPs need to be exactly the same as when the backup was taken.Cluster not accessible or infrastructure components changed after etcd backup was taken
If the cluster is no longer accessible in any means, or the infrastructure machines are changed after the etcd backup was taken, restoring this management cluster itself from the outdated etcd backup will not work. Instead, you need to create a new management cluster, and migrate all the EKS Anywhere resources of the old workload clusters to the new one, so that the new management cluster can maintain the new ownership of managing the existing workload clusters. Below is an example of migrating a failed management cluster mgmt-old
with its workload clusters w01
and w02
to a new management cluster mgmt-new
:
-
Create a new management cluster to which you will be migrating your workload clusters later.
You can define a cluster config similar to your old management cluster, and run cluster creation of the new management cluster with the exact same EKS Anywhere version used to create the old management cluster.
If the original management cluster still exists with old infrastructure running, you need to create a new management cluster with a different cluster name to avoid conflict.
eksctl anywhere create cluster -f mgmt-new.yaml
-
Move the custom resources of all the workload clusters to the new management cluster created above.
Using the vSphere provider as an example, we are moving the Cluster API custom resources, such as
vpsherevms
,vspheremachines
andmachines
of the workload clusters, from the old management cluster to the new management cluster created in above step. By using the--filter-cluster
flag with theclusterctl move
command, we are only targeting the custom resources from the workload clusters.# Use the same cluster name if the newly created management cluster has the same cluster name as the old one MGMT_CLUSTER_OLD="mgmt-old" MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW="mgmt-new" MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW_KUBECONFIG=${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW}/${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW}-eks-a-cluster.kubeconfig WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_1="w01" WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_2="w02" # Substitute the workspace path with the workspace you are using WORKSPACE_PATH="/home/ec2-user/eks-a" # Retrieve the Cluster API backup folder path that are automatically generated during the cluster upgrade # This folder contains all the resources that represent the cluster state of the old management cluster along with its workload clusters CLUSTER_STATE_BACKUP_LATEST=$(ls -Art ${WORKSPACE_PATH}/${MGMT_CLUSTER_OLD} | grep ${MGMT_CLUSTER_OLD}-backup | tail -1) CLUSTER_STATE_BACKUP_LATEST_PATH=${WORKSPACE_PATH}/${MGMT_CLUSTER_OLD}/${CLUSTER_STATE_BACKUP_LATEST}/ # Substitute the EKS Anywhere release version with the EKS Anywhere version of the original management cluster EKSA_RELEASE_VERSION=v0.17.3 BUNDLE_MANIFEST_URL=$(curl -s https://anywhere-assets.eks.amazonaws.com/releases/eks-a/manifest.yaml | yq ".spec.releases[] | select(.version==\"$EKSA_RELEASE_VERSION\").bundleManifestUrl") CLI_TOOLS_IMAGE=$(curl -s $BUNDLE_MANIFEST_URL | yq ".spec.versionsBundles[0].eksa.cliTools.uri") # The clusterctl move command needs to be executed for each workload cluster. # It will only move the workload cluster resources from the EKS Anywhere backup to the new management cluster. # If you have multiple workload clusters, you have to run the command for each cluster as shown below. # Move workload cluster w01 resources to the new management cluster mgmt-new docker run -i --network host -w $(pwd) -v $(pwd):/$(pwd) --entrypoint clusterctl ${CLI_TOOLS_IMAGE} move \ --namespace eksa-system \ --filter-cluster ${WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_1} \ --from-directory ${CLUSTER_STATE_BACKUP_LATEST_PATH} \ --to-kubeconfig ${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW_KUBECONFIG} # Move workload cluster w02 resources to the new management cluster mgmt-new docker run -i --network host -w $(pwd) -v $(pwd):/$(pwd) --entrypoint clusterctl ${CLI_TOOLS_IMAGE} move \ --namespace eksa-system \ --filter-cluster ${WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_2} \ --from-directory ${CLUSTER_STATE_BACKUP_LATEST_PATH} \ --to-kubeconfig ${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW_KUBECONFIG}
-
(Optional) Update the cluster config file of the workload clusters if the new management cluster has a different cluster name than the original management cluster.
You can skip this step if the new management cluster has the same cluster name as the old management cluster.
# workload cluster w01 --- apiVersion: anywhere.eks.amazonaws.com/v1alpha1 kind: Cluster metadata: name: w01 namespace: default spec: managementCluster: name: mgmt-new # This needs to be updated with the new management cluster name. ...
# workload cluster w02 --- apiVersion: anywhere.eks.amazonaws.com/v1alpha1 kind: Cluster metadata: name: w02 namespace: default spec: managementCluster: name: mgmt-new # This needs to be updated with the new management cluster name. ...
Make sure that apart from the
managementCluster
field you updated above, all the other cluster configs of the workload clusters need to stay the same as the old workload clusters resources after the old management cluster fails. -
Apply the updated cluster config of each workload cluster in the new management cluster.
MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW="mgmt-new" MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW_KUBECONFIG=${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW}/${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW}-eks-a-cluster.kubeconfig kubectl apply -f w01/w01-eks-a-cluster.yaml --kubeconfig ${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW_KUBECONFIG} kubectl apply -f w02/w02-eks-a-cluster.yaml --kubeconfig ${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW_KUBECONFIG}
-
Validate all clusters are in the desired state.
kubectl get clusters -n default -o custom-columns="NAME:.metadata.name,READY:.status.conditions[?(@.type=='Ready')].status" --kubeconfig ${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW}/${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW}-eks-a-cluster.kubeconfig NAME READY mgmt-new True w01 True w02 True kubectl get clusters.cluster.x-k8s.io -n eksa-system --kubeconfig ${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW}/${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW}-eks-a-cluster.kubeconfig NAME PHASE AGE mgmt-new Provisioned 11h w01 Provisioned 11h w02 Provisioned 11h kubectl get kcp -n eksa-system --kubeconfig ${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW}/${MGMT_CLUSTER_NEW}-eks-a-cluster.kubeconfig NAME CLUSTER INITIALIZED API SERVER AVAILABLE REPLICAS READY UPDATED UNAVAILABLE AGE VERSION mgmt-new mgmt-new true true 2 2 2 11h v1.27.1-eks-1-27-4 w01 w01 true true 2 2 2 11h v1.27.1-eks-1-27-4 w02 w02 true true 2 2 2 11h v1.27.1-eks-1-27-4
Restore a workload cluster
Cluster accessible and the infrastructure components not changed after etcd backup was taken
Similar to the failed management cluster without infrastructure components change situation, follow the External etcd backup and restore to restore the workload cluster itself from the backup.
Cluster not accessible or infrastructure components changed after etcd backup was taken
If the workload cluster is still accessible, but the infrastructure machines are changed after the etcd backup was taken, you can still try restoring the cluster itself from the etcd backup. Although doing so is risky: it can potentially cause the node names, IPs and other infrastructure configurations to revert to a state that is no longer valid. Restoring etcd effectively takes a cluster back in time and all clients will experience a conflicting, parallel history. This can impact the behavior of watching components like Kubernetes controller managers, EKS Anywhere cluster controller manager, and Cluster API controller managers.
If the original workload cluster becomes inaccessible or cannot be restored to a healthy state from an outdated etcd, a new workload cluster needs to be created. This new cluster should be managed by the same management cluster that oversaw the original. You must then restore your workload applications to this new cluster from the etcd backup of the original. This ensures the management cluster retains control, with all data from the old cluster intact. Below is an example of applying the etcd backup etcd-snapshot-w01.db
from a failed workload cluster w01
to a new cluster w02
:
-
Create a new workload cluster to which you will be migrating your workloads and applications from the original failed workload cluster.
You can define a cluster config similar to your old workload cluster, with a different cluster name (if the old workload cluster still exists), and run cluster creation of the new workload cluster with the exact same EKS Anywhere version used to create the old workload cluster.
export MGMT_CLUSTER="mgmt" export MGMT_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG=${MGMT_CLUSTER}/${MGMT_CLUSTER}-eks-a-cluster.kubeconfig eksctl anywhere create cluster -f w02.yaml --kubeconfig $MGMT_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG
-
Save the config map objects of the new workload cluster to a file.
Save a copy of the new workload cluster’s
cluster-info
,kube-proxy
andkubeadm-config
config map objects before the restore. This is necessary as the etcd restore will override the config maps above with the metadata information (certificates, endpoint, etc.) from the old cluster.export WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_NAME="w02" export WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG=${WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_NAME}/${WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_NAME}-eks-a-cluster.kubeconfig cat <<EOF >> w02-cm.yaml $(kubectl get -n kube-public cm cluster-info -oyaml --kubeconfig $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG) --- $(kubectl get -n kube-system cm kube-proxy -oyaml --kubeconfig $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG) --- $(kubectl get -n kube-system cm kubeadm-config -oyaml --kubeconfig $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG) EOF
Manually remove the
creationTimestamp
,resourceVersion
,uid
from the config map objects, so that later you can runkubectl apply
against this file without errors. -
Follow the External etcd backup and restore to restore the old workload cluster’s etcd backup
etcd-snapshot-w01.db
onto the new workload clusterw02
. Use different restore process based on OS family:Warning
Do not unpause the cluster reconcilers as the workload cluster is not completely setup with required configurations yet. Unpausing the cluster reconcilers might cause unexpected machine rollout and leave the cluster in unhealthy state.
You might notice that after restoring the original etcd backup to the new workload cluster
w02
, all the nodes go toNotReady
state with node names changed to have prefixw01-*
. This is because restoring etcd effectively applies the node data from the original cluster which causes a conflicting history and can impact the behavior of watching components like Kubelets, Kubernetes controller managers.kubectl get nodes --kubeconfig $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION w01-bbtdd NotReady control-plane 3d23h v1.27.3-eks-6f07bbc w01-md-0-66dbcfb56cxng8lc-8ppv5 NotReady <none> 3d23h v1.27.3-eks-6f07bbc
-
Restart Kubelet of the control plane and worker nodes of the new workload cluster after the restore.
For some cases, Kubelet on the node will automatically restart and nodes becomes ready. For other cases, you need to manually restart the Kubelet on all the control plane and worker nodes in order to bring back the nodes to ready state. Kubelet registers the node itself with the apisever which then updates etcd with the correct node data of the new workload cluster
w02
.# SSH into the control plane and worker nodes. You must do this for each node. ssh -i ${SSH_KEY} ${SSH_USERNAME}@<node IP> sudo su systemctl restart kubelet
# SSH into the control plane and worker nodes. You must do this for each node. ssh -i ${SSH_KEY} ${SSH_USERNAME}@<node IP> apiclient exec admin bash sheltie systemctl restart kubelet
-
Add back
node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane
label to all the control plane nodes.kubectl label nodes <control-plane-node-name> node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane= --kubeconfig $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG
-
Remove the lagacy nodes (if any).
kubectl get nodes --kubeconfig $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION w01-bbtdd NotReady control-plane 3d23h v1.27.3-eks-6f07bbc w01-md-0-66dbcfb56cxng8lc-8ppv5 NotReady <none> 3d23h v1.27.3-eks-6f07bbc w02-fcbm2j Ready control-plane 91m v1.27.3-eks-6f07bbc w02-md-0-b7cc67cd4xd86jf-4c9ktp Ready <none> 73m v1.27.3-eks-6f07bbc
kubectl delete node w01-bbtdd --kubeconfig $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG kubectl delete node w01-md-0-66dbcfb56cxng8lc-8ppv5 --kubeconfig $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG
-
Re-apply the original config map objects of the workload cluster.
Re-apply the
cluster-info
,kube-proxy
andkubeadm-config
config map objects we saved in previous step to the workload clusterw02
.kubectl apply -f w02-cm.yaml --kubeconfig $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG
-
Validate the nodes are in ready state.
kubectl get nodes --kubeconfig $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG NAME STATUS ROLES AGE VERSION w02-djshz Ready control-plane 9m7s v1.27.3-eks-6f07bbc w02-md-0-6bbc8dd6d4xbgcjh-wfmb6 Ready <none> 3m55s v1.27.3-eks-6f07bbc
-
Restart the system pods to ensure that they use the config maps you re-applied in previous step.
kubectl rollout restart ds kube-proxy -n kube-system --kubeconfig $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG
-
Unpause the cluster reconcilers
kubectl annotate clusters.anywhere.eks.amazonaws.com $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_NAME anywhere.eks.amazonaws.com/paused- --kubeconfig=$MGMT_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG kubectl patch clusters.cluster.x-k8s.io $WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_NAME --type merge -p '{"spec":{"paused": false}}' -n eksa-system --kubeconfig=$MGMT_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG
-
Rollout and restart all the machine objects so that the workload cluster has a clean state.
# Substitute the EKS Anywhere release version with whatever CLI version you are using EKSA_RELEASE_VERSION=v0.21.0 BUNDLE_MANIFEST_URL=$(curl -s https://anywhere-assets.eks.amazonaws.com/releases/eks-a/manifest.yaml | yq ".spec.releases[] | select(.version==\"$EKSA_RELEASE_VERSION\").bundleManifestUrl") CLI_TOOLS_IMAGE=$(curl -s $BUNDLE_MANIFEST_URL | yq ".spec.versionsBundles[0].eksa.cliTools.uri") # Rollout restart all the control plane machines docker run -i --network host -w $(pwd) -v $(pwd):/$(pwd) --entrypoint clusterctl ${CLI_TOOLS_IMAGE} alpha rollout restart kubeadmcontrolplane/${WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_NAME} -n eksa-system --kubeconfig ${MGMT_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG} # Rollout restart all the worker machines # You need to repeat below command for each worker node group docker run -i --network host -w $(pwd) -v $(pwd):/$(pwd) --entrypoint clusterctl ${CLI_TOOLS_IMAGE} alpha rollout restart machinedeployment/${WORKLOAD_CLUSTER_NAME}-md-0 -n eksa-system --kubeconfig ${MGMT_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG}
-
Validate the new workload cluster is in the desired state.
kubectl get clusters -n default -o custom-columns="NAME:.metadata.name,READY:.status.conditions[?(@.type=='Ready')].status" --kubeconfig $MGMT_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG NAME READY mgmt True w02 True kubectl get clusters.cluster.x-k8s.io -n eksa-system --kubeconfig $MGMT_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG NAME PHASE AGE mgmt Provisioned 11h w02 Provisioned 11h kubectl get kcp -n eksa-system --kubeconfig $MGMT_CLUSTER_KUBECONFIG NAME CLUSTER INITIALIZED API SERVER AVAILABLE REPLICAS READY UPDATED UNAVAILABLE AGE VERSION mgmt mgmt true true 2 2 2 11h v1.27.1-eks-1-27-4 w02 w02 true true 2 2 2 11h v1.27.1-eks-1-27-4