Openstack Freezer for beginners.

1. OpenStack Freezer -101
Trinath Somanchi

2. Session Outline
• Why backups?
• OpenStack DRaaS – Freezer
• Components
• Architecture
• Backup types
• Storage types
• Data restore
• Freezer – Simplified workflow
• Agent – Backup Workflow
• Scheduler – Workflow
• Session JOB and JSON formats

3. Why Backups?
• Backups are needed to protect information from being lost.
The causes for information loss can be : data deletion or
corruption, theft, hacking, fire , etc ...
• In case of an incident, a backup needs to be restored
quickly which means minimizing system downtime.
• Lack of a proper backup and restore system means long
system downtime, which results in significant $$$ loss.
• Application bugs, Power failures, legal requirements and
compliance.

4. OpenStack DRaaS – Freezer
Freezer is a Backup
Restore DR as a Service
platform that helps you
to automate the data
backup and restore
process.
The following features are available:
▪ Backup file system using point-in-time snapshot
▪ Strong encryption supported: AES-256-CFB
▪ Backup file system tree directly (without volume snapshot)
▪ Backup MySQL with lvm snapshot
▪ Restore data from a specific date automatically to file system
▪ Low storage consumption as the backup are uploaded as a stream
▪ Flexible backup policy (incremental and differential)
▪ Data is archived in GNU Tar format for file based incremental
▪ Multiple compression algorithm support (zlib, bzip2, xz)
▪ Remove old backup automatically according to the provided parameters
▪ Multiple storage media support (Swift, local file system, or ssh)
▪ Flush kernel buffered memory to disk
▪ Multi-platform (Linux, Windows, *BSD, OSX)
▪ Manage multiple jobs (I.e., multiple backups on the same node)
▪ Synchronize backups and restore on multiple nodes
▪ Web user interface integrated with OpenStack Horizon
▪ Execute scripts/commands before or after a job execution
Freezer uses GNU Tar or Rsync algorithm under the hood to execute incremental
backup and restore. When a key is provided, it uses OpenSSL or pycrypto module
(OpenSSL compatible) to encrypt data. (AES-256-CFB).

5. Freezer - Components
Web GUI
• Web interface that interacts
with the Freezer API to
configure and change settings
• Provides most of the features
from the Freezer Agent CLI,
advanced scheduler settings
such as multi-node backup
synchronization, metrics, and
reporting.
Scheduler – Client side
component
• Client side component, running
on the node where the data
backup is to be executed.
• Consists of a daemon that
retrieves the data from the
freezer API and executes jobs
(i.e. backups, restore, admin
actions, info actions, pre and/or
post job scripts) by running the
Freezer Agent.
• Manages the execution and
synchronization of multiple jobs
executed on a single or multiple
nodes.
Agent – Client side
component
• Multiprocessing Python
software that runs on the client
side, where the data backup is
to be executed.
• It can be executed standalone
or by the Freezer Scheduler.
• The Freezer Agent provides a
flexible way to execute backup,
restore and other actions on a
running system.
API
• Used to store and provide
metadata to the Freezer Web UI
and to the Freezer Scheduler.
• Used to store session
information for multi node
backup synchronization.
DB Elasticsearch
• Backend used by the API to
store and retrieve metrics,
metadata sessions information,
job status, etc.

6. Freezer - Architecture

7. Backup types
Direct file system
•$> sudo freezer-agent --path-to-backup
/data/dir/to/backup --container freezer_new-data-backup --
backup-name my-backup-name
The command will generate a compressed tar gzip file of the directory
/data/dir/to/backup. The generated file will be segmented in stream and
uploaded in the Swift container called freezer_new-data-backup, with backup
name my-backup-name.
•$> sudo freezer-agent --lvm-srcvol /dev/jenkins/jenkins-
home --lvm-dirmount /var/snapshot-backup --lvm-volgroup
jenkins --path-to-backup /var/snapshot-backup --container
freezer_jenkins-backup-prod --exclude "*.lock" --mode fs -
-backup-name jenkins-ops2
Cinder Backup
•To make a cinder backup you should provide cinder-vol-id or cindernative-vol-
id parameters in command line arguments. Freezer doesn't do any additional
checks and assumes that making a backup of that image will be sufficient to
restore your data in the future.
•Execute a cinder backup:
$ freezer-agent --mode cinder --cinder-vol-id 3ad7a62f-217a-48cd-
a861-43ec0a04a78b
•Execute a MySQL backup with Cinder:
$ freezer-agent --mysql-conf /root/.freezer/freezer-mysql.conf --
container freezer_mysql-backup-prod --mode mysql --backup-name mysql-
ops002 --cinder-vol-id 3ad7a62f-217a-48cd-a861-43ec0a04a78b
Nova Backup
• To make a Nova backup you should provide a Nova parameter in the
arguments. Freezer doesn't do any additional checks and assumes that making
a backup of that instance will be sufficient to restore your data in future.
•Execute a nova backup:
$ freezer-agent --mode nova --nova-inst-id 3ad7a62f-217a-48cd-a861-
43ec0a04a78b
•Execute a MySQL backup with Nova:
$ freezer-agent --mysql-conf /root/.freezer/freezer-mysql.conf
--container freezer_mysql-backup-prod --mode mysql
--backup-name mysql-ops002
--nova-inst-id 3ad7a62f-217a-48cd-a861-43ec0a04a78b

8. Storage types
OpenStack - Swift
To use swift storage specify "--storage swift" or omit "--storage" parameter
altogether (Swift storage is the default). And use "--container <swift-container-
name>"
Backup example:
$ sudo freezer-agent --path-to-backup /data/dir/to/backup --container freezer-
container --backup-name my-backup-name --storage swift
Restore example:
$ sudo freezer-agent --action restore --restore-abs-path /data/dir/to/backup
--container freezer-container --backup-name my-backup-name --storage swift
Local Storage
To use local storage specify "--storage local" And use "--container <path-to-
folder-with-backups>"
Backup example:
$ sudo freezer-agent --path-to-backup /data/dir/to/backup --container
/tmp/my_backup_path/ --backup-name my-backup-name --storage local
Restore example:
$ sudo freezer-agent --action restore --restore-abs-path /data/dir/to/backup
--container /tmp/my_backup_path/ --backup-name my-backup-name
--storage local
SSH Storage
To use ssh storage specify "--storage ssh" And use "--container <path-to-folder-with-backups-on-remote-machine>"
Also you should specify ssh-username, ssh-key and ssh-host parameters. ssh-port is optional parameter, default is 22.
Backup example:
$ sudo freezer-agent --path-to-backup /data/dir/to/backup --container /remote-machine-path/ --backup-name my-
backup-name --storage ssh --ssh-username ubuntu --ssh-key ~/.ssh/id_rsa --ssh-host 8.8.8.8
Restore example:
$ sudo freezer-agent --action restore --restore-abs-pat /data/dir/to/backup --container /remote-machine-path/ --
backup-name my-backup-name --storage ssh --ssh-username ubuntu --ssh-key ~/.ssh/id_rsa --ssh-host 8.8.8.8

9. Data Restore
As a general rule, when you execute a restore, the application that writes or reads data should be
stopped so that during the restore operation, the restored data is not inadvertently read or written by
the application.
Local Storage Restore:
Cinder Restore:
Cinder restore currently creates a volume with the contents of the saved one, but doesn't implement
detachment of existing volume and attachment of the new one to the vm. You should implement these
steps manually. To create a new volume from existing content run the next command:
Execute a cinder restore:
$ freezer-agent --action restore --cinder-vol-id 3ad7a62f-217a-48cd-a861-43ec0a04a78b
$ freezer-agent --action restore --cindernative-vol-id 3ad7a62f-217a-48cd-a861-43ec0a04a78b
sudo freezer-agent --action restore --container /local_backup_storage/ --backup-name adminui.git --hostname git-HP-DL380-host-001
--restore-abs-path /home/git/repositories/adminui.git/ --restore-from-date "2014-05-23T23:23:23" --storage local
Nova Restore:
Nova restore currently creates an instance with the content of saved one, but the ip address of the vm will
be different as well as its id.
Execute a nova restore:
$ freezer-agent --action restore --nova-inst-id 3ad7a62f-217a-48cd-a861-43ec0a04a78b

10. Freezer – Simplified workflow

11. Freezer Agent backup work flow

12. Freezer Scheduler work flow

13. Freezer Job Session

14. Freezer Job JSON
cat test_job.json
{
"job_actions": [
{
"freezer_action": {
"action": "backup",
"mode": "fs",
"backup_name": "backup1",
"path_to_backup": "/home/me/datadir",
"container": "schedule_backups",
"log_file": "/home/me/.freezer/freezer.log"
},
"max_retries": 3,
"max_retries_interval": 60
}
],
"job_schedule": {
"schedule_interval": "4 hours",
"schedule_start_date": "2015-08-16T17:58:00"
},
"description": "schedule_backups 6"
}

15. References
• OpenStack Backup, Restore, DR
(Freezer) -
https://www.slideshare.net/saad_asd49/o
penstack-backup-restore-dr-freezer
• Freezer API -
https://github.com/openstack/freezer-api
• Freezer - Vietnam OpenStack Technical
Meetup #12
https://www.slideshare.net/vietstack/free
zer-vietnam-openstack-technical-
meetup-12
• Freezer API JSON samples
https://github.com/openstack/freezer-
api/tree/master/api-
ref/source/v1/samples
• Freezer API documentation
https://github.com/openstack/freezer-
api/blob/master/README.rst

16. Thank you !