Minback

Minback (short for Minio-backup) is a set of containerized backup tools designed to make regular backing up of your databases in a Kubernetes environment trivially simple, with integrated support for shipping those backups off to S3 (or an S3 compatible service like Minio).

Features

Fully containerized with an environment-variable based API for easy use with Kubernetes.
Full support for streaming backups to S3 compatible storage systems.
Stores backups using the current date in a format which allows for easy scheduled rotation.
Simple and easy to audit or extend.

Supported Databases

We have created versions of Minback with support for the following databases. You will find their containers in the Docker Hub under the minback namespace.

MongoDB

This container provides a trivially simple means to run mongodump and fire the results off to a Minio instance or S3. It is intended to be run in conjunction with a Kubernetes CronJob to maintain a frequent backup of your critical data with minimal fuss.

docker run --rm --env-file backup.env minback/mongo my_db -h mongoserver1

# backup.env
MINIO_SERVER=https://play.minio.io/
MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=minio
MINIO_SECRET_KEY=miniosecret
MINIO_BUCKET=backups

tip

For more information or to report an issue, you can view this project on GitHub.

Configuration

This container is configured using environment variables, enabling it to easily be started manually or automatically and integrate well with Kubernetes' configuration framework.

`MINIO_SERVER=https://play.minio.io/`

The Minio server you wish to send backups to.

`MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=minio`

The Access Key used to connect to your Minio server.

`MINIO_SECRET_KEY=miniosecret`

The Secret Key used to connect to your Minio server.

`MINIO_BUCKET=backups`

The Minio bucket you wish to store your backup in.

`ENCRYPTION_KEY`

(Optional) The OpenSSL symmetric key to protect the archive with. Should be sufficiently long to prevent dictionary based attacks.

`DATE_FORMAT=+%Y-%m-%d`

The date format you would like to use when naming your backup files. Files are named $DB-$DATE.archive.

PostgreSQL

This container provides a trivially simple means to run pg_dump and fire the results off to a Minio instance or S3. It is intended to be run in conjunction with a Kubernetes CronJob to maintain a frequent backup of your critical data with minimal fuss.

docker run --rm --env-file backup.env minback/postgres my_db -h pgserver1

# backup.env
MINIO_SERVER=https://play.minio.io/
MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=minio
MINIO_SECRET_KEY=miniosecret
MINIO_BUCKET=backups

tip

For more information or to report an issue, you can view this project on GitHub.

Configuration

This container is configured using environment variables, enabling it to easily be started manually or automatically and integrate well with Kubernetes' configuration framework.

tip

In addition to the configuration options listed below, you can look at the official pg_dump documentation for their list of supported environment variables and command line flags.

`MINIO_SERVER=https://play.minio.io/`

The Minio server you wish to send backups to.

`MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=minio`

The Access Key used to connect to your Minio server.

`MINIO_SECRET_KEY=miniosecret`

The Secret Key used to connect to your Minio server.

`MINIO_BUCKET=backups`

The Minio bucket you wish to store your backup in.

`DATE_FORMAT=+%Y-%m-%d`

The date format you would like to use when naming your backup files. Files are named $DB-$DATE.archive.

MySQL

This container provides a trivially simple means to run mysqldump and fire the results off to a Minio instance or S3. It is intended to be run in conjunction with a Kubernetes CronJob to maintain a frequent backup of your critical data with minimal fuss.

docker run --rm --env-file backup.env minback/mysql my_db -h mysqlserver1

# backup.env
MINIO_SERVER=https://play.minio.io/
MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=minio
MINIO_SECRET_KEY=miniosecret
MINIO_BUCKET=backups

tip

For more information or to report an issue, you can view this project on GitHub.

Configuration

This container is configured using environment variables, enabling it to easily be started manually or automatically and integrate well with Kubernetes' configuration framework.

tip

In addition to the configuration options listed below, you can look at the official mysqldump documentation for their list of supported environment variables and command line options.

`MINIO_SERVER=https://play.minio.io/`

The Minio server you wish to send backups to.

`MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=minio`

The Access Key used to connect to your Minio server.

`MINIO_SECRET_KEY=miniosecret`

The Secret Key used to connect to your Minio server.

`MINIO_BUCKET=backups`

The Minio bucket you wish to store your backup in.

`DATE_FORMAT=+%Y-%m-%d`

The date format you would like to use when naming your backup files. Files are named $DB-$DATE.archive.

Backup Rotation

In most production settings, you will likely not want to retain all of your backups indefinitely. The process of removing older backups is referred to as "backup rotation" and Minback provides a helpful container to assist with this.

Usage

USAGE:
   minback-cleanup cleanup [command options] [arguments...]

OPTIONS:
   --server value           [$MINIO_SERVER]
   --access-key value       [$MINIO_ACCESS_KEY]
   --secret-key value       [$MINIO_SECRET_KEY]
   --bucket value          (default: "backups") [$MINIO_BUCKET]
   --db value              The name of the database backup files (my-db-2017-12-19.backup would use 'my-db')
   --keep value, -k value  @7d/1d will keep a backup every 1d for all backups 7d old or older

Keep Specifications

A keep specification is composed of three different properties:

Window (@) tells us when this window starts to apply from. It defaults to "right now" and can be extended out with a time duration, for example 52w tells us that the window starts at 1 year and continues into the past from there.
Windows "stack", so @52w and @4w will combine to have one specification applying from 4w to 52w and the next from 52w onwards.
Spacing (/) tells us which backups within a window to keep. A spacing of 15m will keep any backups which fall on the 15m boundary (according to their timestamp) - so :00, :15, :30 and :45.
Smudge Factor (~) tells us that we should round the backup's time to the nearest provided duration. This is great for situations where your backup's timestamp is a lot more accurate than your window and you wish to smudge things to ensure it falls on a boundary.
For example, a smudge of ~15m will convert 11:13:18 to 11:15:00 and have it match the /15m spacing we selected previously. You can also use larger smudges like ~1d or even ~52w (for a year), but keep in mind that we don't de-duplicate things if multiple backups match because of the same smudge factor.

You define a keep specification by concatenating each property's control character with its duration and listing them in any order you wish.

tip

`@2w/1d~6h`

In this example, let's assume we create a new backup every 6 hours but only want to store one backup per day for everything older than 2 weeks (i.e. your 6 hour frequency is for short-term recovery).

Window is 2 weeks (2w), meaning this specification will only apply to backups older than 2 weeks, and until an older window is found.
Spacing is 1 day (1d), meaning we will keep one backup per day within this window. Backups will be selected based on their timestamp and only those which match (after smudging) the day boundary will be kept.
Smudge Factor is 6 hours (6h) which ensures that backups which occur up to 3 hours either side of the day boundary (midnight) will be kept.

Example

In this example, let's assume we have a very aggressive backup schedule that creates a new backup every minute. We would like to keep:

Every backup for the last 1h
A backup every 15m after 1h
A backup every 1h after 6h
A backup every week (7d) after 1 week
A backup every 4 weeks (4w) after a month (4w)
A backup every year after 3 years (156w)

docker run --rm --env-file backup.env minback/cleanup cleanup \
    --db my_db \
    --keep "@1h/15m~5m" \
    --keep "@6h/1h~15m" \
    --keep "@7d/1w~1d" \
    --keep "@4w/4w~1w" \
    --keep "@52w/156w~1w"

# backup.env
MINIO_SERVER=https://play.minio.io
MINIO_ACCESS_KEY=minio
MINIO_SECRET_KEY=miniosecret
MINIO_BUCKET=backups

Site Reliability Engineer, Microsoft

Dublin, Ireland