Backup Enabler

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Backup Enabler

Latest version:

BCK 1.1.6-1
BCKCTL 2.0.2-1

BCK: Backup Enabler


At a Glance
Catalog	Dynamic
Category	Backup
User volumes	yes
Min. memory	160 MB
OS	Linux
Constraints	no
Questions/Comments	Ask Forum

Functional Overview

BCK enables the containing application to backup or restore a copy of itself using Amazon Simple Storage Services (S3), Nirvanix, Layerd Technologies DynaVol, ftp, or sftp. These operations can be initiated through a simple web interface (GUI) exposed by BCK and work in conjunction with the helper application BackupHelper. BCK may also be configured to automatically perform scheduled backups. Whenever the application is backed up, it is stopped and then re-started.

The GUI is accessed using the application IP and the configured BCK port and supports the following application operations:

manually initiate a backup
manually initiate a restore
cancel a backup or restore in progress
monitor a backup or restore in progress
delete existing backups

Limitations:

The initial release of BCK uses the _impex volume to export and import applications for backup and restore. Therefore, the size of the exported application may not exceed the available space on the _impex volume.

Resources

Resource	Minimum	Maximum	Default
CPU	0.15	0.15	0.15
Memory	256 MB	256 MB	256 MB
Bandwidth	2 Mbps	2 Mbps	2 Mbps

Terminals

Name	Direction	Protocol	Description
in	in	Any	Exposes a web interface (GUI) for backup and restore. All other network traffic not directed to the GUI is passed-through aux without modification.
net	out	Any	Output for accessing the grid to facilitate application backup and restore.
aux	out	Any	Auxiliary output. Incoming traffic that is not directed to the GUI is sent through this terminal without modification. This terminal can be left unconnected.
mon	out	CCE	Used for performance and resource usage statistics.

User Volumes

Volume	Description
config	Read/write volume for configuration data.

The volume is used to store a private key file which provides authentication as a normal user on the grid controller. See Preparing for Backup and Restore for information about setting up the config volume.

Properties

Properties in the table below configure BCK for use with a specific service.

Name	Type	Description
backup_service	string	S3, DynaVol_ftp, DynaVol_sftp, ftp, or sftp. Default: S3 S3 - remote storage using the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). Nirvanix - remote storage using Nirvanix. DynaVol_ftp - remote storage using Layered Technologies DynaVol and the ftp protocol. DynaVol_sftp - remote storage using Layered Technologies DynaVol and the sftp protocol. ftp - remote storage using ftp. sftp - remote storage using sftp.
backup_service_ip	IP	IP address of the remote storage service. Default: empty This property is mandatory for all services except S3 and Nirvanix.
backup_user_id	string	User name or signature used to access the remote storage service. Default: empty For S3 this is the user Access Key ID. For Nirvanix this is the account username. For DynaVol_ftp, DynaVol_sftp, ftp and sftp this is the name of the user account. This property is mandatory.
backup_user_auth	string	User password or authentication string used to access the remote storage service. Default: empty For S3 this is the user Secret Access Key. For Nirvanix this is the account password. For DynaVol_ftp and ftp this is the password of the user account. For DynaVol_sftp and sftp, BCK uses a file sftp.private.key in the root of the config volume for key based sftp authentication . sftp password based authentication is not currently supported. This property is mandatory for S3, DynaVol_ftp and ftp.
backup_app_key	string	For Nirvanix this is the application key. This property is not required for other backup services. Default: empty
backup_app_name	string	For Nirvanix this is the application name. This property is not required for other backup services. Default: empty
backup_container_id	string	Identifier of the container on the remote storage service used to hold backups. Default: empty For S3 this is the name of a bucket. BCK attempts to create this bucket if it does not already exist. Note that the S3 bucket name space is shared among all S3 users. If this bucket name exists but belongs to a different user, BCK fails and logs a message to the CA AppLogic® Dashboard. Valid characters are A-Z a-z 0-9 _-. For Nirvanix this is the folder name under the application in which backups are stored. BCK creates this folder if it does not already exist. For DynaVol_ftp, DynaVol_sftp, ftp and sftp this is the path from the home directory of the user user_id to the folder under which backups are stored, for example, backups/applications. BCK attempts to create this folder if it does not already exist. This property is mandatory.

Properties in the table below configure BCK to automatically perform scheduled backups.

name	type	description
schedule_period	string	none, daily, weekly, monthly. Default: none none - no periodic backups. Backups can still be made manually. daily - a backup is made automatically each day. weekly - a backup is made automatically each week. monthly - a backup is made automatically each month.
schedule_day	integer	1-28. Default: 1 For weekly backups numbers 1-7 correspond to Monday through Sunday. Numbers greater than 7 also indicate Sunday. For monthly backups numbers 1-28 indicate the day of the month.
schedule_time	string	Time of day to perform a scheduled backup in the format hour(0-23):minute(0-59). Default: 0:0
schedule_retain	integer	Number of backups to retain. After a new backup is created, existing backups above this number are deleted (oldest first). Default: 3 A value of 0 causes all backups to be retained.

Properties in the table below configure the BCK GUI.

Name	Type	Description
gui_ip	IP	IP address of the containing application used to access the GUI. Default: empty This property is mandatory.
gui_port_no	integer	Port for accessing the web interface. The GUI is accessed through gui_ip and this port. Default: 8080.
gui_username	string	User name for web-based authentication. If empty, no authentication is performed. Default: empty
gui_password	string	Password for web-based authentication. This property is not used if gui_username is empty. Default: empty

Properties in the table below configure BCK to operate on the grid. The two IP's, grid_ip1 and grid_ip2 are available application IP's that are reserved for use by BCK.

Name	Type	Description
grid_ctl_ip	IP	IP address of the grid controller on which the application is running. Default: empty This property is mandatory.
grid_ip1	IP	IP address for use during backup and restore. Defaullt: empty This property is mandatory.
grid_ip2	IP	IP address for use during backup and restore. Default: empty This property is mandatory.
grid_netmask	IP	Netmask for the grid on which the application is running. Default: 255.255.255.0
grid_gateway	IP	Address of IP gateway used to route traffic. This property must be specified to provide access to hosts outside of the IP network on which the application is running. Default: empty This property is mandatory.
grid_dns1	IP	Primary DNS server for the grid. Default: empty This property is mandatory.
grid_dns2	IP	Secondary DNS server for the grid. Default: empty This property is optional.

Error Messages

The following messages may appear in either the appliance log file or the system log of the grid controller when the appliance fails to start:

httpd did not start
/var/www/html/.rc.local script is not executable
/var/www/html/.rc.local script failed, ret=ret

Web Interface (GUI)

BCK exposes a web interface which can be used to manually backup or restore the containing application, or manually delete existing backups. This GUI is accessed using the application IP on the configured port gui_port_no.

Above is an example of the GUI progress monitor during backup. This page contains two monitors:

The Application Monitor tracks:
- Provisioning an instance of BackupHelper
- Stopping BackupHelper upon completion
- Destroying BackupHelper
The BackupHelper Monitor tracks:
- Stopping the application
- Exporting the application to the _impex volume
- Re-starting the application
- Copying the export files from _impex to a BackupHelper volume
- Deleting files from _impex
- Creating a single tar archive of the application
- Splitting this archive into 1 GB pieces
- Copying these pieces to the remote service
- Pruning backups from the remote service according to the schedule_retain property

GUI progress monitor during restore

Above is an example of the GUI progress monitor during restore. This page contains two monitors:

The Application Monitor tracks:
- Provisioning an instance of BackupHelper
- Stopping BackupHelper upon completion
- Destroying BackupHelper
The BackupHelper Monitor tracks:
- Copying backup pieces from the remote service
- Joining these pieces to form a tar archive
- Un-tarring the archive
- Copying the resulting files to the _impex volume
- Importing the application from the _impex volume
- Deleting files from _impex

Preparing For Backup & Restore

These steps must be taken before BCK can be used to backup or restore an application. A step-by-step example is provided here.

Connect the BCK appliance to an existing application - see Typical Usage.
BCK must be able to authenticate on the grid controller as a normal user. To help ensure this, create a public/private key pair in open ssh format without a passphrase. Create a user on the grid whose public key corresponds to the generated public key. Put the generated private key file, with the name grid.private.key, on the root of the config volume of the appliance with owner and group nobody and mode 600.
If the backup_service is sftp, create a public/private key pair in openssh format without a passphrase. Put the generated private key file, with the name sftp.private.key, on the root of the config volume of the appliance with owner and group nobody and mode 600. Include the public key in the authorized_keys file of the user backup_user_id on the remote host.

Important! BCK should start after the NET appliance in the application. In the NET appliance 'Attributes' tab, assign 'Start Order' to 10 and ensure that the 'Start Order' of BCK appliance is more than this value.

Typical Usage

LampX4

The diagram below shows how BCK can be connected to the LampX4 reference application. The INSSLR gateway properties are set to forward tcp traffic on port 8080 to the aux terminal. Pointing a browser at port 8080 of the application IP or resolvable domain name brings up the web interface for BCK.

Note: The BCK appliance should not be connected directly between an IN gateway and the rest of the application, but rather to the aux terminal of an INSSLR gateway.

A step-by-step example for setting up the LampX4 use case is provided here.

Example: How BCK can be connected to the LampX4 reference application

Notes

It is good practice to set the gui_username and gui_password properties of BCK to prevent unauthorized users from performing backup or restore.

Notes:

The exported application must fit on the _impex volume.
The cancel operation is only available when both the application and the BackupHelper are running.
Backups are split into 1GB pieces for storing on the remote service.
BCK will fail to access S3 if the server time is off by more than 15 minutes.

Open source and 3rd party software used inside of the appliance

BCK is a compound appliance comprised of PS8 and BCKCTL. BCKCTL uses the following 3rd party open source packages in addition to the 3rd party open source packages used by its base class WEB5.

Software	Version	Modified	License	Notes
Nirvanix API PHP functions	N/A	Yes	Nirvanix Public License	homepage
phps3tk S3 PHP functions	N/A	Yes	GNU GPL v3	homepage
PEAR.php	1.6.2	No	PHP license v3.0	PEAR package from PEAR
HMAC.php	1.0.1	No	PHP license v3.0	Crypt_HMAC package from PEAR
Request.php	1.4.1	No	BSD	Request package from PEAR
Socket.php	1.0.8	No	PHP license v2.02	Net_Socket package from PEAR
URL.php	1.0.15	No	BSD	Net_URL package from PEAR