Back up Data to GCS Using Dumpling

This document describes how to back up the data of the TiDB cluster in Kubernetes to Google Cloud Storage (GCS). "Backup" in this document refers to full backup (ad-hoc full backup and scheduled full backup). Dumpling is used to get the logic backup of the TiDB cluster, and then this backup data is sent to the remote GCS.

The backup method described in this document is implemented using CustomResourceDefinition (CRD) in TiDB Operator v1.1 or later versions.

Required database account privileges

• The SELECT and UPDATE privileges of the mysql.tidb table: Before and after the backup, the Backup CR needs a database account with these privileges to adjust the GC time.
• SELECT
• RELOAD
• LOCK TABLES
• REPLICATION CLIENT

Ad-hoc full backup to GCS

Ad-hoc full backup describes a backup operation by creating a Backup custom resource (CR) object. TiDB Operator performs the specific backup operation based on this Backup object. If an error occurs during the backup process, TiDB Operator does not retry and you need to handle this error manually.

To better explain how to perform the backup operation, this document shows an example in which the data of the demo1 TiDB cluster is backed up to the test1 Kubernetes namespace.

Prerequisites for ad-hoc full backup

1. Download backup-rbac.yaml and execute the following command to create the role-based access control (RBAC) resources in the test1 namespace:

   kubectl apply -f backup-rbac.yaml -n test1
   

2. Grant permissions to the remote storage.

   Refer to GCS account permissions.

3. Create the backup-demo1-tidb-secret secret which stores the root account and password needed to access the TiDB cluster:

   kubectl create secret generic backup-demo1-tidb-secret --from-literal=password=${password} --namespace=test1
   

Ad-hoc backup process

1. Create the Backup CR and back up data to GCS:

   kubectl apply -f backup-gcs.yaml
   

   The content of backup-gcs.yaml is as follows:

   ---
   apiVersion: pingcap.com/v1alpha1
   kind: Backup
   metadata:
     name: demo1-backup-gcs
     namespace: test1
   spec:
     from:
       host: ${tidb_host}
       port: ${tidb_port}
       user: ${tidb_user}
       secretName: backup-demo1-tidb-secret
     gcs:
       secretName: gcs-secret
       projectId: ${project_id}
       bucket: ${bucket}
       # prefix: ${prefix}
       # location: us-east1
       # storageClass: STANDARD_IA
       # objectAcl: private
       # bucketAcl: private
   # dumpling:
   #  options:
   #  - --threads=16
   #  - --rows=10000
   #  tableFilter:
   #  - "test.*"
     storageClassName: local-storage
     storageSize: 10Gi
   

   The example above backs up all data in the TiDB cluster to GCS. Some parameters in spec.gcs can be ignored, such as location, objectAcl, bucketAcl, and storageClass. For more information about GCS configuration, refer to GCS fields.

   spec.dumpling refers to Dumpling-related configuration. You can specify Dumpling's operation parameters in the options field. See Dumpling Option list for more information. These configuration items of Dumpling can be ignored by default. When these items are not specified, the default values of options fields are as follows:

   options:
   - --threads=16
   - --rows=10000
   

   For more information about the Backup CR fields, refer to Backup CR fields.

2. After creating the Backup CR, use the following command to check the backup status:

   kubectl get bk -n test1 -owide
   

Scheduled full backup to GCS

You can set a backup policy to perform scheduled backups of the TiDB cluster, and set a backup retention policy to avoid excessive backup items. A scheduled full backup is described by a custom BackupSchedule CR object. A full backup is triggered at each backup time point. Its underlying implementation is the ad-hoc full backup.

Prerequisites for scheduled backup

The prerequisites for the scheduled backup is the same as the prerequisites for ad-hoc full backup.

Scheduled backup process

1. Create the BackupSchedule CR, and back up cluster data as described below:

   kubectl apply -f backup-schedule-gcs.yaml
   

   The content of backup-schedule-gcs.yaml is as follows:

   ---
   apiVersion: pingcap.com/v1alpha1
   kind: BackupSchedule
   metadata:
     name: demo1-backup-schedule-gcs
     namespace: test1
   spec:
     #maxBackups: 5
     #pause: true
     maxReservedTime: "3h"
     schedule: "*/2 * * * *"
     backupTemplate:
       from:
         host: ${tidb_host}
         port: ${tidb_port}
         user: ${tidb_user}
         secretName: backup-demo1-tidb-secret
       gcs:
         secretName: gcs-secret
         projectId: ${project_id}
         bucket: ${bucket}
         # prefix: ${prefix}
         # location: us-east1
         # storageClass: STANDARD_IA
         # objectAcl: private
         # bucketAcl: private
     # dumpling:
     #  options:
     #  - --threads=16
     #  - --rows=10000
     #  tableFilter:
     #  - "test.*"
       # storageClassName: local-storage
       storageSize: 10Gi
   

2. After creating the scheduled full backup, use the following command to check the backup status:

   kubectl get bks -n test1 -owide
   

   Use the following command to check all the backup items:

   kubectl get bk -l tidb.pingcap.com/backup-schedule=demo1-backup-schedule-gcs -n test1
   

From the example above, you can see that the backupSchedule configuration consists of two parts. One is the unique configuration of backupSchedule, and the other is backupTemplate.

backupTemplate specifies the configuration related to the cluster and remote storage, which is the same as the spec configuration of the Backup CR. For the unique configuration of backupSchedule, refer to BackupSchedule CR fields.

Delete the backup CR

Refer to Delete the Backup CR.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any problem during the backup process, refer to Common Deployment Failures.