Handle Filestore volumes with Backup for GKE

Autopilot Standard

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This page describes how to handle Filestore volumes with Backup for GKE.

Backup for GKE doesn't integrate with Filestore volumes. This means that backing up and restoring data directly from these volumes is not supported. However, Backup for GKE can be used to provide solutions for workloads that are backed by Filestore volumes in certain disaster recovery scenarios.

With these solutions, you can back up Filestore volume configurations by enabling permissive mode. For restoration, you can use the reconnect Filestore volumes or restore Filestore volumes data out-of-band solutions.

Note: The solution applies only to Filestore volumes provisioned through the GKE Filestore CSI driver. It may not work for other types of NFS volumes.

Back up Filestore volume configurations

By default, backing up clusters that contain Filestore volumes fail if permissive mode is not enabled. When permissive mode is enabled, Backup for GKE captures the configuration of workloads and volumes. For more information about permissive mode, see Enable permissive mode on a backup plan.

Reconnect Filestore volumes

Backup for GKE allows restore plans to specify the volume data restore policy to Reuse existing volumes containing your data. In this case, it creates PersistentVolumeClaim and PersistentVolume resources directly and references existing Filestore volumes without provisioning new ones.

If the backup contains Compute Engine Persistent Disk volumes and you want to restore data for those volumes, see Define volume data restore behavior for how to configure volume data restore policy bindings.

Note: To reconnect Filestore volumes during a restore, ensure that volumes are available and accessible in the target cluster.

Back up and restore Filestore volumes out-of-band

You can use the Filestore backup capability to create separate backups of your Filestore volumes. These backups are independent of Backup for GKE, ensuring you have a complete copy of the data.

Back up Filestore volumes out-of-band

Filestore provides backups that create a copy of a file share, including all file data and metadata from the point in time the backup is created. You can create separate backups for Filestore volumes in addition to Backup for GKE backups containing Filestore volume configuration. For instructions, see create a backup from the Filestore.

Restore Filestore volumes out-of-band

With both Filestore backups and Backup for GKE backups, you can restore workloads using the following steps:

1. Restore Filestore volumes out-of-band using the Filestore backup.
2. Create static PersistentVolumes that reference the restored Filestore volumes in the target cluster. These PersistentVolumes must have the .spec.claimRef field correctly referencing the to-be-created PersistentVolumeClaims.

3. From Backup for GKE, initiate a restore using the volume data restore policy Don't restore volume data. The newly created PVCs bind to the PersistentVolumes created in the earlier step.

   If the backup contains Compute Engine Persistent Disk volumes and you want to restore data for those volumes, see Define volume data restore behavior for how to configure volume data restore policy bindings.