NetBackup™ Deployment Guide for Kubernetes Clusters

Last Published:
Product(s): NetBackup & Alta Data Protection (10.5.0.1)
  1. Introduction
    1. About Cloud Scale deployment
      1.  
        Decoupling of NetBackup web services from primary server
      2.  
        Decoupling of NetBackup Policy and Job Management from primary server
      3.  
        Logging feature (fluentbit) in Cloud Scale
    2.  
      About NetBackup Snapshot Manager
    3.  
      Required terminology
    4.  
      User roles and permissions
  2. Section I. Configurations
    1. Prerequisites
      1.  
        Preparing the environment for NetBackup installation on Kubernetes cluster
      2.  
        Prerequisites for Snapshot Manager (AKS/EKS)
      3. Prerequisites for Kubernetes cluster configuration
        1.  
          Config-Checker utility
        2.  
          Data-Migration for AKS
        3.  
          Webhooks validation for EKS
      4. Prerequisites for Cloud Scale configuration
        1.  
          Cluster specific settings
        2.  
          Cloud specific settings
      5.  
        Prerequisites for deploying environment operators
    2. Recommendations and Limitations
      1.  
        Recommendations of NetBackup deployment on Kubernetes cluster
      2.  
        Limitations of NetBackup deployment on Kubernetes cluster
      3.  
        Recommendations and limitations for Cloud Scale deployment
    3. Configurations
      1.  
        Contents of the TAR file
      2.  
        Initial configurations
      3.  
        Configuring the environment.yaml file
      4. Loading docker images
        1.  
          Installing the docker images for NetBackup
        2.  
          Installing the docker images for Snapshot Manager
        3.  
          Installing the docker images and binaries for MSDP Scaleout
      5.  
        Configuring NetBackup IT Analytics for NetBackup deployment
      6. Configuring NetBackup
        1. Primary and media server CR
          1.  
            After installing primary server CR
          2.  
            After Installing the media server CR
        2.  
          Elastic media server
    4. Configuration of key parameters in Cloud Scale deployments
      1.  
        Tuning touch files
      2.  
        Setting maximum jobs per client
      3.  
        Setting maximum jobs per media server
      4.  
        Enabling intelligent catalog archiving
      5.  
        Enabling security settings
      6.  
        Configuring email server
      7.  
        Reducing catalog storage management
      8.  
        Configuring zone redundancy
      9.  
        Enabling client-side deduplication capabilities
      10.  
        Parameters for logging (fluentbit)
  3. Section II. Deployment
    1. Deploying Cloud Scale
      1.  
        How to deploy Cloud Scale
      2.  
        Deploying the operators
      3.  
        Deploying fluentbit for logging
      4. Deploying Postgres
        1.  
          Enable request logging, update configuration, and copying files from/to PostgreSQL pod
      5. Deploying Cloud Scale environment
        1.  
          Installing Cloud Scale environment
        2. Single node Cloud Scale Technology deployment
          1.  
            Steps to deploy Cloud Scale in single node
      6.  
        Verifying Cloud Scale deployment
      7. Post Cloud Scale deployment tasks
        1.  
          Configuring NetBackup IT Analytics for NetBackup deployment by configuring data collector on a separate host machine
        2.  
          Restarting Cloud Scale Technology services
  4. Section III. Monitoring and Management
    1. Monitoring NetBackup
      1.  
        Monitoring the application health
      2.  
        Telemetry reporting
      3.  
        About NetBackup operator logs
      4.  
        Monitoring Primary/Media server CRs
      5.  
        Expanding storage volumes
      6. Allocating static PV for Primary and Media pods
        1.  
          Expanding log volumes for primary pods
        2.  
          Recommendation for media server volume expansion
        3.  
          (AKS-specific) Allocating static PV for Primary and Media pods
        4.  
          (EKS-specific) Allocating static PV for Primary and Media pods
    2. Monitoring Snapshot Manager
      1.  
        Overview
      2.  
        Configuration parameters
    3. Monitoring fluentbit
      1.  
        Monitoring fluentbit for logging
    4. Monitoring MSDP Scaleout
      1.  
        About MSDP Scaleout status and events
      2.  
        Monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch
      3.  
        Monitoring with Azure Container insights
      4.  
        The Kubernetes resources for MSDP Scaleout and MSDP operator
    5. Managing NetBackup
      1.  
        Managing NetBackup deployment using VxUpdate
      2.  
        Updating the Primary/Media server CRs
      3.  
        Migrating the cloud node for primary or media servers
    6. Managing the Load Balancer service
      1.  
        About the Load Balancer service
      2.  
        Notes for Load Balancer service
      3.  
        Opening the ports from the Load Balancer service
      4.  
        Steps for upgrading Cloud Scale from multiple media load balancer to none
    7. Managing PostrgreSQL DBaaS
      1.  
        Changing database server password in DBaaS
      2.  
        Updating database certificate in DBaaS
    8. Managing fluentbit
      1.  
        Managing fluentbit for logging
    9. Performing catalog backup and recovery
      1.  
        Backing up a catalog
      2. Restoring a catalog
        1.  
          Primary server corrupted
        2.  
          MSDP-X corrupted
        3.  
          MSDP-X and Primary server corrupted
  5. Section IV. Maintenance
    1. PostgreSQL DBaaS Maintenance
      1.  
        Configuring maintenance window for PostgreSQL database in AWS
      2.  
        Setting up alarms for PostgreSQL DBaaS instance
    2. Patching mechanism for primary, media servers, fluentbit pods, and postgres pods
      1.  
        Overview
      2.  
        Patching of containers
    3. Upgrading
      1. Upgrading Cloud Scale Technology
        1.  
          Prerequisites for Cloud Scale Technology upgrade
        2.  
          Upgrade the add-ons
        3.  
          Upgrade the operators
        4.  
          Upgrade fluentbit
        5.  
          Upgrade PostgreSQL database
        6.  
          Create db-cert bundle
        7.  
          Upgrade Cloud Scale
    4. Cloud Scale Disaster Recovery
      1.  
        Cluster backup
      2.  
        Environment backup
      3.  
        Cluster recovery
      4.  
        Cloud Scale recovery
      5.  
        Environment Disaster Recovery
      6.  
        DBaaS Disaster Recovery
    5. Uninstalling
      1.  
        Uninstalling NetBackup environment and the operators
      2.  
        Uninstalling Postgres using Helm charts
      3.  
        Uninstalling Snapshot Manager from Kubernetes cluster
      4. Uninstalling MSDP Scalout from Kubernetes cluster
        1.  
          Cleaning up MSDP Scaleout
        2.  
          Cleaning up the MSDP Scaleout operator
    6. Troubleshooting
      1. Troubleshooting AKS and EKS issues
        1.  
          View the list of operator resources
        2.  
          View the list of product resources
        3.  
          View operator logs
        4.  
          View primary logs
        5.  
          Socket connection failure
        6.  
          Resolving an issue where external IP address is not assigned to a NetBackup server's load balancer services
        7.  
          Resolving the issue where the NetBackup server pod is not scheduled for long time
        8.  
          Resolving an issue where the Storage class does not exist
        9.  
          Resolving an issue where the primary server or media server deployment does not proceed
        10.  
          Resolving an issue of failed probes
        11.  
          Resolving token issues
        12.  
          Resolving an issue related to insufficient storage
        13.  
          Resolving an issue related to invalid nodepool
        14.  
          Resolving a token expiry issue
        15.  
          Resolve an issue related to KMS database
        16.  
          Resolve an issue related to pulling an image from the container registry
        17.  
          Resolving an issue related to recovery of data
        18.  
          Check primary server status
        19.  
          Pod status field shows as pending
        20.  
          Ensure that the container is running the patched image
        21.  
          Getting EEB information from an image, a running container, or persistent data
        22.  
          Resolving the certificate error issue in NetBackup operator pod logs
        23.  
          Pod restart failure due to liveness probe time-out
        24.  
          NetBackup messaging queue broker take more time to start
        25.  
          Host mapping conflict in NetBackup
        26.  
          Issue with capacity licensing reporting which takes longer time
        27.  
          Local connection is getting treated as insecure connection
        28.  
          Primary pod is in pending state for a long duration
        29.  
          Backing up data from Primary server's /mnt/nbdata/ directory fails with primary server as a client
        30.  
          Storage server not supporting Instant Access capability on Web UI after upgrading NetBackup
        31.  
          Taint, Toleration, and Node affinity related issues in cpServer
        32.  
          Operations performed on cpServer in environment.yaml file are not reflected
        33.  
          Elastic media server related issues
        34.  
          Failed to register Snapshot Manager with NetBackup
        35.  
          Post Kubernetes cluster restart, flexsnap-listener pod went into CrashLoopBackoff state or pods were unable to connect to flexsnap-rabbitmq
        36.  
          Post Kubernetes cluster restart, issues observed in case of containerized Postgres deployment
        37.  
          Request router logs
        38.  
          Issues with NBPEM/NBJM
        39.  
          Issues with logging feature for Cloud Scale
        40.  
          The flexsnap-listener pod is unable to communicate with RabbitMQ
      2. Troubleshooting AKS-specific issues
        1.  
          Data migration unsuccessful even after changing the storage class through the storage yaml file
        2.  
          Host validation failed on the target host
        3.  
          Primary pod goes in non-ready state
      3. Troubleshooting EKS-specific issues
        1.  
          Resolving the primary server connection issue
        2.  
          NetBackup Snapshot Manager deployment on EKS fails
        3.  
          Wrong EFS ID is provided in environment.yaml file
        4.  
          Primary pod is in ContainerCreating state
        5.  
          Webhook displays an error for PV not found
      4.  
        Troubleshooting issue for bootstrapper pod
  6. Appendix A. CR template
    1.  
      Secret
    2. MSDP Scaleout CR
      1.  
        MSDP Scaleout CR template for AKS
      2.  
        MSDP Scaleout CR template for EKS
  7. Appendix B. MSDP Scaleout
    1.  
      About MSDP Scaleout
    2.  
      Prerequisites for MSDP Scaleout (AKS\EKS)
    3.  
      Limitations in MSDP Scaleout
    4. MSDP Scaleout configuration
      1.  
        Initializing the MSDP operator
      2.  
        Configuring MSDP Scaleout
      3.  
        Configuring the MSDP cloud in MSDP Scaleout
      4.  
        Using MSDP Scaleout as a single storage pool in NetBackup
      5.  
        Using S3 service in MSDP Scaleout
      6.  
        Enabling MSDP S3 service after MSDP Scaleout is deployed
    5.  
      Installing the docker images and binaries for MSDP Scaleout (without environment operators or Helm charts)
    6.  
      Deploying MSDP Scaleout
    7. Managing MSDP Scaleout
      1.  
        Adding MSDP engines
      2.  
        Adding data volumes
      3. Expanding existing data or catalog volumes
        1.  
          Manual storage expansion
      4.  
        MSDP Scaleout scaling recommendations
      5. MSDP Cloud backup and disaster recovery
        1.  
          About the reserved storage space
        2. Cloud LSU disaster recovery
          1.  
            Recovering MSDP S3 IAM configurations from cloud LSU
      6.  
        MSDP multi-domain support
      7.  
        Configuring Auto Image Replication
      8. About MSDP Scaleout logging and troubleshooting
        1.  
          Collecting the logs and the inspection information
    8. MSDP Scaleout maintenance
      1.  
        Pausing the MSDP Scaleout operator for maintenance
      2.  
        Logging in to the pods
      3.  
        Reinstalling MSDP Scaleout operator
      4.  
        Migrating the MSDP Scaleout to another node pool

Upgrade the operators

Depending on the following scenarios, perform the appropriate procedure to upgrade the operators:

  • Upgrade only

  • Upgrade and modify additional parameters

Note:

The helm command must be run from the following location:

/VRTSk8s-netbackup-<version>/helm/

Upgrade only

Upgrade the operators using the following command when using the new tags and not modifying additional parameters:

Note:

Use this command if operators are deployed using separate operator helm chart. Separate operator helm charts are supported from version 10.4 onwards.

helm upgrade operators operators-<version>.tgz -n netbackup-operator-system --reuse-values \ --set msdp-operator.image.tag=20.5-0045 \ --set nb-operator.image.tag=<version>\ --set nb-operator.msdp-operator.image.tag=20.5-0045 \ --set nb-operator.flexsnap-operator.image.tag=<version> \ --set flexsnap-operator.image.tag=<version>

Upgrade and modify additional parameters

Perform the following steps to upgrade the operators when modifying the parameters in addition to the tags:

  1. Extract the operators-values.yaml file from the helm package.

  2. Use the following command to save the operators chart values to a file:

    helm show values operators-<version>.tgz > operators-values.yaml

  3. Use the following command to obtain the values from the current helm release (to be used as reference):

    helm get values operators -n netbackup-operator-system

  4. Use the following command to edit the chart values to match your deployment scenario:

    vi operators-values.yaml

    Following is an example for operators-values.yaml file:

    # Default values for operators.
    # This is a YAML-formatted file.
    # Declare variables to be passed into your templates.
     
    global:
      # Toggle for platform-specific features & settings
      # Microsoft AKS: "aks"
      # Amazon EKS: "eks"
      platform: "eks"
      # This specifies a container registry that the cluster has access to.
      # NetBackup images should be pushed to this registry prior to applying this
      # Environment resource.
      # Example Azure Container Registry name:
      # example.azurecr.io
      # Example AWS Elastic Container Registry name:
      # 123456789012.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com
      containerRegistry: "364956537575.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/engdev"
      operatorNamespace: "netbackup-operator-system"
      # By default pods will get spun up in timezone of node, timezone of node is UTC in AKS/EKS
      # through this field one can specify the different timezone
      # example : /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata
      timezone: null
     
      storage:
        eks:
          fileSystemId: fs-0411809d90c60aed6
        aks:
          #storageAccountName and storageAccountRG required if use wants to use existing storage account
          storageAccountName: null
          storageAccountRG: null
     
    msdp-operator:
      image:
        name: msdp-operator
        # Provide tag value in quotes eg: '17.0'
        tag: "20.5-0027"
        pullPolicy: Always
     
      namespace:
        labels:
          control-plane: controller-manager
     
      # This determines the path used for storing core files in the case of a crash.
      corePattern: "/core/core.%e.%p.%t"
     
      # This specifies the number of replicas of the msdp-operator controllers
      # to create. Minimum number of supported replicas is 1.
      replicas: 2
     
      # Optional: provide label selectors to dictate pod scheduling on nodes.
      # By default, when given an empty {} all nodes will be equally eligible.
      # Labels should be given as key-value pairs, ex:
      #   agentpool: mypoolname
      nodeSelector:
        agentpool: nbupool
     
      # Storage specification to be used by underlying persistent volumes.
      # References entries in global.storage by default, but can be replaced
      storageClass:
        name: nb-disk-premium
        size: 5Gi
     
      # Specify how much of each resource a container needs.
      resources:
        # Requests are used to decide which node(s) should be scheduled for pods.
        # Pods may use more resources than specified with requests.
        requests:
          cpu: 150m
          memory: 150Mi
        # Optional: Limits can be implemented to control the maximum utilization by pods.
        # The runtime prevents the container from using more than the configured resource limits.
        limits: {}
     
      logging:
        # Enable verbose logging
        debug: false
        # Maximum age (in days) to retain log files, 1 <= N <= 365
        age: 28
        # Maximum number of log files to retain, 1 <= N =< 20
        num: 20
     
    nb-operator:
      image:
        name: "netbackup/operator"
        tag: "10.5-xxxx"
        pullPolicy: Always
     
      # nb-operator needs to know the version of msdp and flexsnap operators for webhook
      # to do version checking
      msdp-operator:
        image:
          tag: "20.5-0027"
     
      flexsnap-operator:
        image:
          tag: "10.5.x.x-xxxx"
     
      namespace:
        labels:
          nb-control-plane: nb-controller-manager
     
      nodeSelector:
        node_selector_key: agentpool
        node_selector_value: nbupool
     
      #loglevel:
      #  "-1" - Debug (not recommended for production)
      #  "0"  - Info
      #  "1"  - Warn
      #  "2"  - Error
     
      loglevel:
        value: "0"
     
    flexsnap-operator:
      replicas: 1
     
      namespace:
        labels: {}
     
      image:
        name: "veritas/flexsnap-deploy"
        tag: "10.5.x.x-xxxx"
        pullPolicy: Always
     
      nodeSelector:
        node_selector_key: agentpool
        node_selector_value: nbupool 
  5. Execute the following command to upgrade the operators:

    helm upgrade --install operators operators-<version>.tgz -f operators-values.yaml -n netbackup-operator-system

    Or

    If using the OCI container registry, use the following command:

    helm upgrade --install operators oci://abcd.veritas.com:5000/helm-charts/operators --version <version> -f operators-values.yaml -n netbackup-operator-system

  • Use the following command to verify the operator pod status:

    kubectl get all -n netbackup-operator-system