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Chapter 11. Backing up Satellite Server and Capsule Server

You can back up your Satellite deployment to ensure the continuity of your Red Hat Satellite deployment and associated data in case a disaster occurs. If your deployment uses custom configurations, you must consider how to handle these custom configurations when you plan your backup and disaster recovery policy.

Backing up your Satellite Server or Capsule Server requires you to plan scheduling, storage, and security so you avoid disruption and protect sensitive data.

11.1.1. Available backup methods
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Choose an offline or online backup method based on how long you can keep Satellite services unavailable and how much time you can allocate for the backup.

Offline backup

All Satellite services are shut down during an offline backup.

For more details, read help information for the offline backup: 

# satellite-maintain backup offline --help
Online backup

Only Satellite services that affect the consistency of the backup, including all background workers, are shut down while the backup process is running. Online backups check for consistency and require more time than offline backups.

For more details, read help information for the online backup: 

# satellite-maintain backup online --help

Apply these recommendations when scheduling and storing backups so you protect sensitive data and avoid conflicts with other administrators.

  • Red Hat recommends backing up Satellite to a separate storage device on a separate system. The satellite-maintain backup command creates a backup of your Satellite Server or Capsule Server and all associated data.

  • Satellite services are unavailable during the backup. Coordinate with other administrators to ensure no conflicting tasks run during the backup window.

    Warning

    Request other users of Satellite Server or Capsule Server to save any changes and warn them that Satellite services are unavailable for the duration of the backup. Ensure no other tasks are scheduled for the same time as the backup.

    You can schedule a backup by using cron.

    Note

    During offline backups, the services are inactive and Satellite is in a maintenance mode. A firewall rejects traffic from outside on port 443 to ensure there are no modifications triggered.

  • Encrypt or move the backup to a secure location to minimize the risk of damage or unauthorized access to the hosts. A backup has sensitive information from the /root/ssl-build directory. For example, it can have hostnames, SSH keys, request files and SSL certificates.

11.1.3. Directories created during backups
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Satellite organizes backups in time-stamped subdirectories, which helps you identify and select the correct backup when restoring your system.

The satellite-maintain backup command creates a time-stamped subdirectory in the backup directory that you specify. The satellite-maintain backup command does not overwrite backups, therefore you must select the correct directory or subdirectory when restoring from a backup or an incremental backup. The satellite-maintain backup command stops and restarts services as required.

When you run the satellite-maintain backup offline command, the following default backup directories are created:

  • satellite-backup on Satellite
  • foreman-proxy-backup on Capsule

If you want to set a custom directory name, add the --preserve-directory option and add a directory name. The backup is then stored in the directory you provide in the command line. If you use the --preserve-directory option, no data is removed if the backup fails.

11.1.4. Estimating the size of a backup
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Estimate how much disk space a Satellite backup requires so you can ensure enough storage is available and avoid backup failures.

A full backup requires space to store the following data:

  • Uncompressed Satellite database and configuration files
  • Compressed Satellite database and configuration files
  • An extra 20% of the total estimated space to ensure a reliable backup

Compression occurs after the archives are created to decrease the time when Satellite services are unavailable.

Note

Backups do not include container images for Red Hat Lightspeed in Satellite.

Procedure

  1. Estimate the size of uncompressed directories containing Satellite database and configuration files: 

    # du -sh /var/lib/pgsql/data /var/lib/pulp
100G    /var/lib/pgsql/data
100G	/var/lib/pulp

# du -csh /var/lib/tftpboot /etc /root/ssl-build \
/var/www/html/pub /opt/puppetlabs
16M   /var/lib/tftpboot
37M   /etc
900K  /root/ssl-build
100K  /var/www/html/pub
2M    /opt/puppetlabs
942M  total

  2. Calculate how much space is required to store the compressed data.

    The following table describes the compression ratio of all data items included in the backup:

    Expand
    Table 11.1. Backup data compression ratio
    Data typeDirectoryRatioExample results

    PostgreSQL database files

    /var/lib/pgsql/data

    80 – 85%

    100 GB 20 GB

    Pulp RPM files

    /var/lib/pulp

    (not compressed)

    100 GB

    Configuration files

    /var/lib/tftpboot

    /etc

    /root/ssl-build

    /var/www/html/pub

    /opt/puppetlabs

    85%

    942 MB 141 MB

    In this example, the compressed backup data occupies 120 GB in total.

  3. To calculate the amount of available space you require to store a backup, calculate the sum of the estimated values of compressed and uncompressed backup data, and add an extra 20% to ensure a reliable backup.

    This example requires 201 GB plus 120 GB for the uncompressed and compressed backup data, 321 GB in total. With 64 GB of extra space, 385 GB must be allocated for the backup location.

Run a full offline backup on Satellite Server or Capsule Server to capture all Satellite content and configuration. A full backup is useful when you want to prepare for a future restore from scratch.

Prerequisites

Warning

Request other users of Satellite Server or Capsule Server to save any changes and warn them that Satellite services are unavailable for the duration of the backup. Ensure no other tasks are scheduled for the same time as the backup.

Procedure

  1. Back up your Satellite Server: 

    # satellite-maintain backup offline /var/satellite-backup

  2. Back up your Capsule Server: 

    # satellite-maintain backup offline /var/foreman-proxy-backup

11.3. Performing a backup without Pulp content
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Run an offline backup that excludes the contents of the Pulp directory. A backup without Pulp content is useful for debugging purposes and is only intended to provide access to configuration files without backing up the Pulp database.

Warning

Do not use a backup without Pulp content to restore your Satellite Server or Capsule Server for production use cases.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  • Back up your Satellite Server without Pulp content: 

    # satellite-maintain backup offline --skip-pulp-content /var/backup_directory

11.4. Performing an incremental backup
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Run an incremental backup to perform an offline backup that captures any changes since a previous full backup. Incremental backups use less time and storage than a full offline backup.

To perform incremental backups, you must perform a full backup as a reference to create the first incremental backup of a sequence. Keep the most recent full backup and a complete sequence of incremental backups to restore from.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. Perform a full offline backup. For more information, see Section 11.2, “Performing a full backup of Satellite Server or Capsule Server”.

  2. Create a directory within your backup directory to store the first incremental backup: 

    # satellite-maintain backup offline --incremental /var/backup_directory/full_backup /var/backup_directory

  3. Create the second incremental backup by including the path to the first incremental backup to indicate the starting point for the next increment. This creates a directory for the second incremental backup in your backup directory: 

    # satellite-maintain backup offline --incremental /var/backup_directory/first_incremental_backup /var/backup_directory

  4. Optional: If you want to point to a different version of the backup, and make a series of increments with that version of the backup as the starting point, you can do this at any time. For example, if you want to make a new incremental backup from the full backup rather than the first or second incremental backup, point to the full backup directory: 

    # satellite-maintain backup offline --incremental /var/backup_directory/full_backup /var/backup_directory

The following script performs a full backup on a Sunday followed by incremental backups for each of the following days. A new subdirectory is created for each day that an incremental backup is performed. The script requires a daily cron job. 

#!/bin/bash -e
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DESTINATION=/var/backup_directory
if [[ $(date +%w) == 0 ]]; then
  satellite-maintain backup offline --assumeyes $DESTINATION
else
  LAST=$(ls -td -- $DESTINATION/*/ | head -n 1)
  satellite-maintain backup offline --assumeyes --incremental "$LAST" $DESTINATION
fi
exit 0

Note that the satellite-maintain backup command requires /sbin and /usr/sbin directories to be in PATH and the --assumeyes option is used to skip the confirmation prompt.

11.6. Performing an online backup
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Run an online backup to create a Satellite backup while keeping most services running. This is useful when you need to maintain system availability during backup operations.

When you perform an online backup, most Satellite services remain running and usable. Background workers are shut down to ensure consistent backups. Operations that require background workers remain in pending state. The backup process ensures that the Pulp data (/var/lib/pulp) is not altered during the backup. Any changes to the Pulp data during the backup will result in restart of the backup process, taking additional time.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  • Perform an online backup on your Satellite Server: 

    # satellite-maintain backup online /var/backup_directory

11.7. Creating a conventional backup
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You can use conventional backup methods to back up your Satellite Server or Capsule Server. Unlike Satellite backup methods, conventional backup methods require you to stop Satellite services.

Procedure

  1. When creating a snapshot or conventional backup, stop all Satellite services: 

    # satellite-maintain service stop
  2. Create the snapshot or conventional backup. For more information, see Recovering and restoring a system in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Configuring basic system settings.

  3. Start Satellite services after creating a snapshot or conventional backup: 

    # satellite-maintain service start
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