Create a fine-grained restore

The page guides you through how to create fine-grained restores that use filters to target specific resources in VM and VM disk backups. You can create a restore for a backup that was created manually or automatically by a backup plan. The restored VMs and their associated disks have their name prefixed with the value of the restoredResourceName field.

VM restores support fine-grained resource selection using filters. Use a filter to restore a subset of resources from the previously created VirtualMachineBackup resource. This filter is an optional field. If the filter is not provided then the complete set of resources in the VirtualMachineBackup resource are restored.

Before you begin

To create a restore, you must have the following:

An existing backup. Create backups on a schedule using backup plans, or create backups manually. For more information, see Create a scoped backup plan.
The necessary identity and access role. For more information, see Prepare roles and permissions.

Create a fine-grained restore

To create a fine-grained restore for a previously created backup, follow these steps:

Get a list of VMs and VM disks that were backed up in your target VirtualMachineBackup resource:
1. Get the list of VMs:
```
kubectl get VirtualMachineBackup VM_BACKUP_NAME -n
VM_BACKUP_NAMESPACE -o jsonpath=
"{.status.backedUpVirtualMachines}{'\n'}"
```
  Replace the following:
  - VM_BACKUP_NAME: the name of the backup containing the VM resources you want to restore.
  - VM_BACKUP_NAMESPACE: the namespace containing the backup.
2. Get the list of VM disks:
```
kubectl get VirtualMachineBackup VM_BACKUP_NAME -n
VM_BACKUP_NAMESPACE -o
jsonpath="{.status.backedUpVirtualMachineDisks}{'\n'}"
```
Use the values from this list to specify the target for your fine-grained restore. Create one of the following fine-grained restores:

Restore specific VMs

Use the targetedVirtualMachines filter to target a list of VMs with this restore. This option restores the provided VMs and their associated disks. Create and apply a VirtualMachineRestoreRequest resource and supply your list of VMs to restore in the targetedVirtualMachines field:
```
apiVersion: virtualmachine.gdc.goog/v1
kind: VirtualMachineRestoreRequest
metadata:
  name: RESTORE_REQUEST_NAME
  namespace: PROJECT_NAME
spec:
  virtualMachineBackup: VM_BACKUP_NAME
  restoreName: RESTORE_NAME
  restoredResourceName: RESTORE_PREFIX
  restoredResourceDescription: RESTORED_RESOURCE_DESCRIPTION
filter:
    targetedVirtualMachines:
    - resourceName: VM_NAME
```
Replace the following:
- VM_BACKUP_NAME: the name of the VirtualMachineBackup resource to restore from.
- PROJECT_NAME: the name of the GDC project.
- RESTORE_REQUEST_NAME: the name to give the restore request that is being initiated.
- RESTORE_NAME: the name to give the restore that is being initiated.
- RESTORE_PREFIX: the prefix given to newly created VM resources. The restored VM and VM disk names are prefixed with restoredResourceName value in the restore request.
- RESTORED_RESOURCE_DESCRIPTION: a description of the restore being performed.
- VM_NAME: A list of VMs that is restored by this VirtualMachineRestoreRequest resource. If more than one VM is specified, the list must be in the following format:
```
  targetedVirtualMachines:
      - resourceName: "virtual-machine"
      - resourceName: "virtual-machine-2"
      ...
      - resourceName: "virtual-machine-n"
  ```
```

Restore specific VM disks

Use the targetedVirtualMachineDisks filter to target a set of VM disks to restore. This option restores any disks that were backed up, and these disks don't have to be attached to the same VM. This option restores only the disks and not the VMs to which the disks were attached. Create and apply a VirtualMachineRestoreRequest resource and supply the list of VM disks to restore in the targetedVirtualMachineDisks field:
```
apiVersion: virtualmachine.gdc.goog/v1
kind: VirtualMachineRestoreRequest
metadata:
  name: RESTORE_REQUEST_NAME
  namespace: PROJECT_NAME
spec:
  virtualMachineBackup: VM_BACKUP_NAME
  restoreName: RESTORE_NAME
  restoredResourceName: RESTORE_PREFIX
  restoredResourceDescription: RESTORED_RESOURCE_DESCRIPTION
  filter:
    targetedVirtualMachineDisks:
    - VM_DISK_NAME
```
Replace VM_DISK_NAME with the list of VM disks that is restored by this VirtualMachineRestoreRequest resource. If more than one VM disk is specified, the list must be in the following format:
```
targetedVirtualMachineDisks:
    - resourceName: "disk-1"
    - resourceName: "disk-2"
    ...
    - resourceName: "disk-n"
```

Restore specific VMs and VM disks

To target combination of VMs and VM disks, use the targetedVirtualMachines and targetedVirtualMachineDisks filters together, this method restore the VMs specified in the targetedVirtualMachines filter along with their attached disks, and the VM disks mentioned in targetedVirtualMachineDisks filter. If the disk is already attached to the VM specified in the targetedVirtualMachineDisks list. In the targetedVirtualMachineDisks filter, specify only the disks that are not already included as part of the targetedVirtualMachines.
```
apiVersion: virtualmachine.gdc.goog/v1
kind: VirtualMachineRestoreRequest
metadata:
  name: RESTORE_REQUEST_NAME
  namespace: PROJECT_NAME
spec:
  virtualMachineBackup: VM_BACKUP_NAME
  restoreName: RESTORE_NAME
  restoredResourceName: RESTORE_PREFIX
  restoredResourceDescription: RESTORED_RESOURCE_DESCRIPTION
  filter:
    targetedVirtualMachines:
    - resourceName: VM_NAME
    targetedVirtualMachineDisks:
    - resourceName: VM_DISK_NAME
```
Replace the following:
- VM_NAME:The list of VMs that is restored by this VirtualMachineRestoreRequest resource. If more than one VM is specified, the list must be in the following format:
```
      targetedVirtualMachines:
          - resourceName: "virtual-machine"
          - resourceName: "virtual-machine-2"
          ...
          - resourceName: "virtual-machine-n"
  ```
```
- VM_DISK_NAME: the list of VM disks that is restored by this VirtualMachineRestoreRequest resource. If more than one VM disk is specified, the list must be in the following format:
```
targetedVirtualMachineDisks:
    - resourceName: "disk-1"
    - resourceName: "disk-2"
    ...
    - resourceName: "disk-n"
```

Restore all VM disks

Set the filter value virtualMachineDiskOptions.allDisks to true to restore all of the disks that were protected as part of VirtualMachineBackup. This action won't restore the VMs to which the disks were attached:

apiVersion: virtualmachine.gdc.goog/v1
kind: VirtualMachineRestoreRequest
metadata:
  name: RESTORE_REQUEST_NAME
  namespace: PROJECT_NAME
spec:
  virtualMachineBackup: VM_BACKUP_NAME
  restoreName: RESTORE_NAME
  restoredResourceName: RESTORE_PREFIX
  restoredResourceDescription: RESTORED_RESOURCE_DESCRIPTION
  filter:
    virtualMachineDiskOptions:
        allDisks: true

What's next

Clean up labels after restoring VM-attached disks