========================
Team and repository tags
========================

.. image:: https://governance.openstack.org/tc/badges/freezer.svg
    :target: https://governance.openstack.org/tc/reference/tags/index.html

.. Change things from this point on

=======
Freezer
=======

.. image:: ../freezer_logo.jpg

NOTE
----

Freezer has four different components; Freezer Web UI, Freezer Scheduler,
Freezer Agent and Freezer API.

If you need to use Freezer Backup Restore as a Service platform, you need to
install Freezer Scheduler, Freezer Agent on client and Freezer Web UI, Freezer
API on OpenStack controller server.
(The server where your Horizon and Keystone installed)

This is the source code of Freezer Scheduler and Freezer Agent.

If you need to get the source code of other components,
please visit proper Github pages:

Freezer Web UI:
https://github.com/openstack/freezer-web-ui

Freezer API:
https://github.com/openstack/freezer-api

Features
========

Freezer is a Backup Restore 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 journalled MongoDB directory tree using lvm snapshot to Swift
-  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 Components
==================

+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Component         | Description                                                                                                                                    |
+===================+================================================================================================================================================+
| Freezer Web UI    | Web interface that interacts with the Freezer API to configure and change settings.                                                            |
|                   | It provides most of the features from the Freezer Agent CLI, advanced scheduler settings such as multi-node backup synchronization,            |
|                   | metrics, and reporting.                                                                                                                        |
+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Freezer Scheduler | A client side component, running on the node where the data backup is to be executed.                                                          |
|                   | It 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.                                                                                     |
|                   | The metrics and exit codes returned by the freezer agent are captured and sent to the Freezer API.                                             |
|                   | The scheduler manages the execution and synchronization of multiple jobs executed on a single or multiple nodes.                               |
|                   | The status of the execution of all the nodes is saved through the API.                                                                         |
|                   | The Freezer scheduler takes care of uploading jobs to the API by reading job files on the file system.                                         |
|                   | It also has its own configuration file where job session or other settings like the freezer API polling interval can be configured.            |
|                   | The Freezer scheduler manages jobs, for more information about jobs please refer to: freezer_api/README.rst under JOB the sections             |
+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Freezer Agent     | 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.                                    |
|                   | In order to provide flexibility in terms of data integrity, speed, performance, resources usage, etc the freezer agent offers a                |
|                   | wide range of options to execute optimized backup according to the available resources as:                                                     |
|                   |                                                                                                                                                |
|                   |   - Segments size (the amount of memory used)                                                                                                  |
|                   |   - Queues size (optimize backups where I/O, bandwidth, memory or CPU is a constraint)                                                         |
|                   |   - I/O Affinity and process priority (it can be used with real time I/O and maximum user level process priority)                              |
|                   |   - Bandwidth limitation                                                                                                                       |
|                   |   - Client side Encryption (AES-256-CFB)                                                                                                       |
|                   |   - Compression (multiple algorithms supported as zlib, bzip2, xz/lzma)                                                                        |
|                   |   - Parallel upload to pluggable storage media (i.e., upload backup to swift and to a remote node by ssh,                                      |
|                   |     or upload to two or more independent swift instances with different credentials, etc)                                                      |
|                   |   - Execute file based incremental (like tar), block based incremental (like rsync algorithm) and differential based backup and restore        |
|                   |   - Multi-platform as it can be run on Linux, Windows, \*BSD and OSX                                                                           |
|                   |   - Automatic removal of old backups                                                                                                           |
+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Freezer API       | The API is used to store and provide metadata to the Freezer Web UI and to the Freezer Scheduler.                                              |
|                   | Also the API is used to store session information for multi node backup synchronization. No workload data is stored in the API.                |
|                   | For more information to the API please refer to: freezer_api/README.rst                                                                        |
+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| DB Elasticsearch  | Backend used by the API to store and retrieve metrics, metadata sessions information, job status, etc.                                         |
+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Linux Requirements
==================

-  OpenStack Swift Account (optional)
-  python
-  GNU Tar >= 1.26
-  gzip, bzip2, xz
-  OpenSSL
-  python-swiftclient
-  keystoneauth1
-  pymongo
-  PyMySQL
-  libmysqlclient-dev
-  sync
-  libffi-dev
-  libssl-dev
-  python-dev
-  cryptography
-  At least 128 MB of memory reserved for Freezer

Windows Requirements
====================

- Python 2.7
- GNU Tar binaries (we recommend to follow [this guide] (https://github.com/openstack-freezer-utils/freezer-windows-binaries#windows-binaries-for-freezer) to install them)
- [OpenSSL pre-compiled for windows] (https://wiki.openssl.org/index.php/Binaries) or [direct download](https://indy.fulgan.com/SSL/openssl-1.0.1-i386-win32.zip)
- [Sync] (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897438.aspx)
- [Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler for Python 2.7] (https://aka.ms/vcpython27)
- [PyWin32 for python 2.7] (https://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/files/pywin32/Build%20219/)

Add binaries to Windows Path
----------------------------
Go to **Control Panel\System and Security\System** and then **Advanced System Settings**, and click **Environment Variables** under **System Variables** edit **Path** and append in the end.
- ;C:\\Sync
- ;C:\\OpenSSL-Win64\\bin
- ;C:\\Python27;C:\\Python27\\Lib\\site-packages\\;C:\\Python27\\Scripts\\

The following components support Windows OS Platform:

- freezer-agent
- freezer-scheduler

Install Windows Scheduler
-------------------------

Freezer scheduler on windows run as a windows service and it needs to be installed as a user service.

- open cmd as admin
- whoami
- cd C:\\Python27\\Lib\\site-packages\\freezer\\scheduler
- python win_service.py --username {whoami} --password {pc-password} install


Unofficial Installer for Windows
--------------------------------

Freezer offers a [windows installer] (https://github.com/openstack-freezer-utils/freezer-windows-installer#windows-freezer-installer) supported by the community



Installation & Env Setup
========================

Before Installation
-------------------

1-) Chose correct branch for corresponding OpenStack version.
If your OpenStack installation is Kilo, chose Stable/Kilo release. etc...

2-) This installation instruction only for Freezer Agent and Freezer Scheduler
on client side. If you need to install other components, visit their Github page.

3-) Make sure you have installed same version of all four components.
Do not miss match different version. For example; do not use Freezer Agent Stable/Kilo
release with Freeze API Stable/Liberty release.

4-) Following installation instructions only for Freezer Scheduler
and Freezer Agent.


Ubuntu / Debian
---------------

Swift client and Keystone client::

    $ sudo apt-get install python-dev
    For python3:
    $ sudo apt-get install python3-dev
    $ sudo easy_install -U pip

MongoDB backup::

    $ sudo apt-get install python-pymongo

MySQL backup::

    $ sudo pip install pymysql

Freezer installation from Python package repo::

    $ sudo pip install freezer

OR::

    $ sudo easy_install freezer

The basic Swift account configuration is needed to use freezer. Make
sure python-swiftclient is installed.

Also the following ENV vars are needed. You can put them in ~/.bashrc::

    export OS_REGION_NAME=region-a.geo-1
    export OS_TENANT_ID=<account tenant>
    export OS_PASSWORD=<account password>
    export OS_AUTH_URL=https://region-a.geo-1.identity.hpcloudsvc.com:5000/v3
    export OS_USERNAME=automationbackup
    export OS_TENANT_NAME=automationbackup

    $ source ~/.bashrc

Let's say you have a container called freezer_foobar-container, by executing
"swift list" you should see something like::

    $ swift list
    freezer_foobar-container-2
    $

These are just use case example using Swift in the HP Cloud.

*Is strongly advised to execute backups using LVM snapshot, so
freezer will execute a backup on point-in-time data. This avoids the risk of
data inconsistencies and corruption.*


Windows
-------
General packages::

    > easy_install -U pip
    > pip install freezer

The basic Swift account configuration is needed to use freezer. Make sure python-swiftclient is installed::

    set OS_REGION_NAME=region-a.geo-1
    set OS_TENANT_ID=<account tenant>
    set OS_PASSWORD=<account password>
    set OS_AUTH_URL=https://region-a.geo-1.identity.hpcloudsvc.com:5000/v3
    set OS_USERNAME=automationbackup
    set OS_TENANT_NAME=automationbackup


Usage Example
=============

Freezer will automatically add the prefix "freezer\_" to the container name,
where it is provided by the user and doesn't already start with this prefix.
If no container name is provided, the default is "freezer_backups".

The execution options can be set from the command line and/or config file
in ini format. There's an example of the job config file available in
freezer/freezer/specs/job-backup.conf.example. Command line options
always override the same options in the config file.

Backup
------

The most simple backup execution is a direct file system backup::

    $ sudo freezer-agent --path-to-backup /data/dir/to/backup
    --container freezer_new-data-backup --backup-name my-backup-name

    * On windows (need admin rights)*
    > freezer-agent --action backup --mode fs --backup-name testwindows
    --path-to-backup "C:\path\to\backup" --container freezer_windows
    --log-file  C:\path\to\log\freezer.log

By default --mode fs is set. 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.

Now check to see if your backup executed correctly by looking at
/var/log/freezer.log

Execute a MongoDB backup using lvm snapshot:

We need to check before to see on which volume group and logical volume our
mongo data is located. This information can be obtained as per the following::

    $ mount
    [...]

Once we know the volume on which our Mongo data is mounted, we can get
the volume group and logical volume info::

    $ sudo vgdisplay
    [...]
    $ sudo lvdisplay
    [...]

We assume our mongo volume is "/dev/mongo/mongolv" and the volume group
is "mongo"::

    $ sudo freezer-agent --lvm-srcvol /dev/mongo/mongolv --lvm-dirmount /var/lib/snapshot-backup
    --lvm-volgroup mongo --path-to-backup /var/lib/snapshot-backup/mongod_ops2
    --container freezer_mongodb-backup-prod --exclude "*.lock" --mode mongo --backup-name mongod-ops2

Now freezer-agent creates an lvm snapshot of the volume /dev/mongo/mongolv. If
no options are provided, the default snapshot name is "freezer\_backup\_snap".
The snapshot vol will be mounted automatically on /var/lib/snapshot-backup,
and the backup metadata and segments will be uploaded in the container
mongodb-backup-prod with the name mongod-ops2.

Execute a file system backup using lvm snapshot::

    $ 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

MySQL backup requires a basic configuration file. The following is an
example of the config::

    $ sudo cat /root/.freezer/db.conf
    [default]
    host = your.mysql.host.ip
    user = backup
    password = userpassword

Every listed option is mandatory. There's no need to stop the mysql
service before the backup execution.

Execute a MySQL backup using lvm snapshot::

    $ sudo freezer-agent --lvm-srcvol /dev/mysqlvg/mysqlvol
    --lvm-dirmount /var/snapshot-backup
    --lvm-volgroup mysqlvg --path-to-backup /var/snapshot-backup
    --mysql-conf /root/.freezer/freezer-mysql.conf--container
    freezer_mysql-backup-prod --mode mysql --backup-name mysql-ops002

Cinder backups
==============

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 backups
============

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

All the freezer-agent activities are logged into /var/log/freezer.log.


Local, Swift, S3 compatible and SSH Storage
-------------------------------------------

Freezer can use:

* local storage - a folder that is available in the same OS (may be mounted)
* Swift storage - OS object storage
* SSH storage - a folder on a remote machine

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


Swift storage
=============

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

S3 compatible storage
=====================

To use S3 compatible storage specify "--storage s3"
And use "--container <s3-bucket-name>"
Also you should specify endpoint, access-key and secret-key parameters.

endpoint is the endpoint of S3 compatible storage
access-key is the access key for S3 compatible storage
secret-key is the secret key for S3 compatible storage

The basic S3 compatible storage account configuration is needed to using 's3'
storage driver.

Make sure botocore is installed::

    set ACCESS_KEY=<access-key>
    set SECRET_KEY=<secret-key>
    set ENDPOINT=<endpoint>

Backup example::

   $ sudo freezer-agent --path-to-backup /data/dir/to/backup
   --container freezer-container --backup-name my-backup-name
   --storage s3

Restore example::

   $ sudo freezer-agent --action restore --restore-abs-path /data/dir/to/backup
   --container freezer-container --backup-name my-backup-name
   --storage s3

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.

ssh-username for user ubuntu should be "--ssh-username ubuntu"
ssh-key should be path to your secret ssh key "--ssh-key <path-to-secret-key>"
ssh-host can be ip of remote machine or resolvable dns name "--ssh-host 8.8.8.8"

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-path /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
-------

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.

There are 3 main options that need to be set for data restore

file system Restore:

Execute a file system restore of the backup name
adminui.git::

    $ sudo freezer-agent --action restore --container freezer_foobar-container-2
    --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"

MySQL restore:

Execute a MySQL restore of the backup name holly-mysql.
Let's stop mysql service first::

    $ sudo service mysql stop

Execute Restore::

    $ sudo freezer-agent --action restore --container freezer_foobar-container-2
    --backup-name mysq-prod --hostname db-HP-DL380-host-001
    --restore-abs-path /var/lib/mysql --restore-from-date "2014-05-23T23:23:23"

And finally restart mysql::

    $ sudo service mysql start

Execute a MongoDB restore of the backup name mongobigdata::

    $ sudo freezer-agent --action restore --container freezer_foobar-container-2
    --backup-name mongobigdata --hostname db-HP-DL380-host-001
    --restore-abs-path /var/lib/mongo --restore-from-date "2014-05-23T23:23:23"


List remote containers::

    $ sudo freezer-agent --action info

List remote objects in container::

    $ sudo freezer-agent --action info --container freezer_testcontainer -l


Remove backups older then 1 day::

    $ freezer-agent --action admin --container freezer_dev-test --remove-older-than 1 --backup-name dev-test-01


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

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

Local storage restore execution::

    $ 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

Architecture
============


Freezer architectural components are the following:

-  OpenStack Swift (the storage)
-  freezer client running on the node where the backups and restores are to be executed

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 cryptography module (OpenSSL compatible)
to encrypt data. (AES-256-CFB)

=============

The Freezer architecture is composed of the following components:

+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Component         | Description                                                                                                                                    |
+===================+================================================================================================================================================+
| Freezer Web UI    | Web interface that interacts with the Freezer API to configure and change settings.                                                            |
|                   | It provides most of the features from the freezer-agent CLI as well as advanced scheduler settings such as multi-node backup synchronization,  |
|                   | metrics, and reporting.                                                                                                                        |
+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Freezer Scheduler | A client side component, running on the node where the data backup is to be executed.                                                          |
|                   | It 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.                                                                                     |
|                   | The metrics and exit codes returned by the freezer agent are captured and sent to the Freezer API.                                             |
|                   | The scheduler manages the execution and synchronization of multiple jobs executed on a single or multiple nodes.                               |
|                   | The status of the execution of all the nodes is saved through the API.                                                                         |
|                   | The Freezer scheduler takes care of uploading jobs to the API by reading job files on the file system.                                         |
|                   | It also has its own configuration file where job session or other settings like the freezer API polling interval can be configured.            |
|                   | The Freezer scheduler manages jobs. For more information about jobs please refer to: freezer_api/README.rst under JOB the sections             |
+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Freezer Agent     | 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.                                    |
|                   | In order to provide flexibility in terms of data integrity, speed, performance, resources usage, etc the freezer agent offers a                |
|                   | wide range of options to execute optimized backup according to the available resources as:                                                     |
|                   |                                                                                                                                                |
|                   |   - Segments size (the amount of memory used)                                                                                                  |
|                   |   - Queues size (optimize backups where I/O, bandwidth, memory or CPU is a constraint)                                                         |
|                   |   - I/O Affinity and process priority (it can be used with real time I/O and maximum user level process priority)                              |
|                   |   - Bandwidth limitation                                                                                                                       |
|                   |   - Client side Encryption (AES-256-CFB)                                                                                                       |
|                   |   - Compression (multiple algorithms supported as zlib, bzip2, xz/lzma)                                                                        |
|                   |   - Parallel upload to pluggable storage media (i.e.,upload backup to swift and to a remote node by SSH,                                       |
|                   |     or upload to two or more independent swift instances with different credentials, etc)                                                      |
|                   |   - Execute file based incremental (like tar), block based incremental (like rsync algorithm) and differential based backup and restore        |
|                   |   - Multi-platform as it can be run on Linux, Windows, \*BSD and OSX                                                                           |
|                   |   - Automatic removal of old backups                                                                                                           |
|                   |                                                                                                                                                |
+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Freezer API       | The API is used to store and provide metadata to the Freezer Web UI and to the Freezer Scheduler.                                              |
|                   | Also the API is used to store session information for multi node backup synchronization. No workload data is stored in the API.                |
|                   | For more information on the API please refer to: freezer_api/README.rst                                                                        |
+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| DB ElasticSearch  | Backend used by the API to store and retrieve metrics, metadata sessions information, job status, etc.                                         |
+-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Freezer currently uses GNU Tar under the hood to execute incremental backup and
restore. When a key is provided, it uses OpenSSL to encrypt data (AES-256-CFB).

The following diagrams can help to better understand the solution:

**Service Architecture**

.. image::
    specs/Service_Architecture_02.png

**Freezer Agent backup work flow with API**

.. image::
    specs/freezer_agent_backup_api.png

**Freezer Agent backup without API**

.. image::
    specs/freezer_agent_backup.png

**Freezer Scheduler with API**

.. image:: specs/freezer_scheduler_api.png

**Freezer Job Session**

.. image:: specs/job_session.png

**Freezer Dashboard**

.. image:: specs/freezer_dashboard.png

**How to scale**

.. image:: specs/freezer_scheduler_api.png

Low resources requirement
-------------------------

Freezer is designed to reduce to the minimum I/O, CPU and Memory Usage.
This is achieved by generating a data stream from tar (for archiving)
and gzip (for compressing). Freezer segments the stream in a configurable
chunk size (with the option --max-seg-size). The default segment size is
64MB, so it can be safely stored in memory, encrypted if the key is
provided, and uploaded to Swift as a segment.

Multiple segments are sequentially uploaded using the Swift Manifest.
All the segments are uploaded first, and then the Manifest file is
uploaded too, so the data segments cannot be accessed directly. This
ensures data consistency.

By keeping the segments small, in-memory, I/O usage is reduced. Also as
there's no need to store locally the final compressed archive
(tar-gziped), no additional or dedicated storage is required for the
backup execution. The only additional storage needed is the LVM snapshot
size (set by default at 5GB). The lvm snapshot size can be set with the
option --lvm-snapsize. It is important to not specify a too small snapshot
size, because in case a quantity of data is being written to the source
volume and consequently the lvm snapshot is filled up, then the data will be
corrupted.

If more memory is available for the backup process, the maximum
segment size can be increased. This will speed up the process. Please
note that the segments must be smaller then 5GB, since that is the maximum
object size in the Swift server.

On the other hand, if a server has small memory availability, the
--max-seg-size option can be set to lower values. The unit of this
option is in bytes.

How the incremental works
-------------------------

The incremental backups is one of the most crucial features. The
following basic logic happens when Freezer executes:

1) Freezer starts the execution and checks if the provided backup name for
   the current node already exists in Swift.

2) If the backup exists, then the Manifest file is retrieved. This is
   important as the Manifest file contains the information of the
   previous Freezer execution.


Nova and Cinder Backups
-----------------------

If our data is stored on cinder volume or nova instance disk, we can implement
file backup using nova snapshots or volume backups.

Nova backups
============

If you provide nova arguments in the parameters, freezer assumes that all
necessary data is located on instance disk and it can be successfully stored
using nova snapshot mechanism.

For example if we want to store our MySQL located on instance disk, we
will execute the same actions as in the case of lvm or tar snapshots, but
we will invoke nova snapshot instead of lvm or tar.

After that we will place the snapshot in a Swift container as a dynamic large object.

container/<instance_id>/<timestamp> <- large object with metadata
container_segments/<instance_id>/<timestamp>/segments...

Restore will create a snapshot from stored data and restore an instance from
this snapshot. Instance will have different id and old instance should be
terminated manually.


Cinder backups
==============

Cinder has its own mechanism for backups, and freezer supports it. But it also
allows creating a glance image from volume and uploading to swift.

To use standard cinder backups please provide --cindernative-vol-id argument.


Parallel backup
---------------

Parallel backup can be executed only by config file. In config file you
should create n additional sections that start with "storage:"

Example [storage:my_storage1], [storage:ssh], [storage:storage3]

Each storage section should have 'container' argument and all parameters
related to the storage

Example: ssh-username, ssh-port

For swift storage you should provide additional parameter called 'osrc'
Osrc should be a path to file with OpenStack Credentials like::

  unset OS_DOMAIN_NAME
  export OS_AUTH_URL=http://url:5000/v3
  export OS_PROJECT_NAME=project_name
  export OS_USERNAME=username
  export OS_PASSWORD=secret_password
  export OS_PROJECT_DOMAIN_NAME=Default
  export OS_USER_DOMAIN_NAME=Default
  export OS_IDENTITY_API_VERSION=3
  export OS_AUTH_VERSION=3
  export OS_CACERT=/etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
  export OS_ENDPOINT_TYPE=internalURL

Example of Config file for two local storages and one swift storage::

  [default]
  action = backup
  mode = fs
  path_to_backup = /foo/
  backup_name = mytest6
  always_level = 2
  max_segment_size = 67108864
  container = /tmp/backup/
  storage = local
  [storage:first]
  storage=local
  container = /tmp/backup1/
  [storage:second]
  storage=local
  container = /tmp/backup2/
  [storage:swift]
  storage=swift
  container = test
  osrc = openrc.osrc

freezer-scheduler
-----------------
The freezer-scheduler is one of the two freezer components which is run on
the client nodes; the other one being the freezer-agent.
It has a double role: it is used both to start the scheduler process, and as
a cli-tool which allows the user to interact with the API.

The freezer-scheduler process can be started/stopped in daemon mode using the usual
positional arguments::

  freezer-scheduler start|stop

It can be also be started as a foreground process using the ``--no-daemon`` flag::

  freezer-scheduler --no-daemon start

This can be useful for testing purposes, when launched in a Docker container,
or by a babysitting process such as systemd.

The cli-tool version is used to manage the jobs in the API.
A "job" is basically a container; a document which contains one
or more "actions".

An action contains the instructions for the freezer-agent. They are the same
parameters that would be passed to the agent on the command line. For example:
"backup_name", "path_to_backup", "max_level"

To sum it up, a job is a sequence of parameters that the scheduler pulls
from the API and passes to a newly spawned freezer-agent process at the
right time.

The scheduler understands the "scheduling" part of the job document,
which it uses to actually schedule the job, while the rest of the parameters
are substantially opaque.

It may also be useful to use the ``-c`` parameter to specify the client-id that
the scheduler will use when interacting with the API.

The purpose of the *client-id* is to associate a job with the
scheduler instance which is supposed to execute that job.

A single OpenStack user could manage different resources on different nodes
(and actually may even have different freezer-scheduler instances running
on the same node with different local privileges, for example),
and the client-id allows him to associate the specific scheduler instance
with its specific jobs.

When not provided with a custom client-id, the scheduler falls back to the default
which is composed from the tenant-id and the hostname of the machine on which it is
running.


The first step to use the scheduler is creating a document with the job::

  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"
  }

Then upload that job into the API::

  freezer-scheduler -c node12 job-create --file test_job.json

The newly created job can be found with::

  freezer-scheduler -c node12 job-list

  +----------------------------------+--------------------+-----------+--------+-------+--------+------------+
  |              job_id              |    description     | # actions | status | event | result | session_id |
  +----------------------------------+--------------------+-----------+--------+-------+--------+------------+
  | 07999ea33a494ccf84590191d6fe850c | schedule_backups 6 |     1     |        |       |        |            |
  +----------------------------------+--------------------+-----------+--------+-------+--------+------------+

Its content can be read with::

  freezer-scheduler -c node12 job-get -j 07999ea33a494ccf84590191d6fe850c

The scheduler can be started on the target node with::

  freezer-scheduler -c node12 -i 15 -f ~/job_dir start

The scheduler could have already been started. As soon as the freezer-scheduler contacts the API,
it fetches the job and schedules it.


Misc
====

Dependencies notes
------------------
In stable/kilo and stable/liberty the module ``pep3143daemon`` is imported
from local path rather than pip. This generated many issues as the package
is not in the global-requirements.txt of kilo and liberty.

Also pbr in the kilo release does not support env markers which further
complicated the installation.

Please check the `FAQ <FAQ.rst>`_ too.

Available options::

    usage: freezer-agent [-h] [--action ACTION] [--always-level ALWAYS_LEVEL]
                     [--backup-name BACKUP_NAME]
                     [--cinder-vol-id CINDER_VOL_ID]
                     [--cinder-vol-name CINDER_VOL_NAME]
                     [--cindernative-vol-id CINDERNATIVE_VOL_ID]
                     [--command COMMAND] [--compression COMPRESSION]
                     [--config CONFIG] [--config-dir DIR] [--config-file PATH]
                     [--container CONTAINER] [--debug]
                     [--dereference-symlink DEREFERENCE_SYMLINK]
                     [--download-limit DOWNLOAD_LIMIT] [--dry-run]
                     [--encrypt-pass-file ENCRYPT_PASS_FILE]
                     [--exclude EXCLUDE] [--hostname HOSTNAME] [--insecure]
                     [--log-config-append PATH]
                     [--log-date-format DATE_FORMAT] [--log-dir LOG_DIR]
                     [--log-file PATH] [--log-format FORMAT]
                     [--lvm-auto-snap LVM_AUTO_SNAP]
                     [--lvm-dirmount LVM_DIRMOUNT]
                     [--lvm-snap-perm LVM_SNAPPERM]
                     [--lvm-snapname LVM_SNAPNAME]
                     [--lvm-snapsize LVM_SNAPSIZE] [--lvm-srcvol LVM_SRCVOL]
                     [--lvm-volgroup LVM_VOLGROUP] [--max-level MAX_LEVEL]
                     [--max-priority MAX_PRIORITY]
                     [--max-segment-size MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE]
                     [--metadata-out METADATA_OUT] [--mode MODE]
                     [--mysql-conf MYSQL_CONF]
                     [--no-incremental NO_INCREMENTAL] [--nodebug]
                     [--nodry-run] [--noinsecure] [--nooverwrite] [--noquiet]
                     [--nouse-syslog] [--nouse-syslog-rfc-format]
                     [--nova-inst-id NOVA_INST_ID] [--noverbose]
                     [--nova-inst-name NOVA_INST_NAME]
                     [--nowatch-log-file]
                     [--os-identity-api-version OS_IDENTITY_API_VERSION]
                     [--overwrite] [--path-to-backup PATH_TO_BACKUP]
                     [--proxy PROXY] [--quiet]
                     [--remove-from-date REMOVE_FROM_DATE]
                     [--remove-older-than REMOVE_OLDER_THAN]
                     [--restart-always-level RESTART_ALWAYS_LEVEL]
                     [--restore-abs-path RESTORE_ABS_PATH]
                     [--restore-from-date RESTORE_FROM_DATE]
                     [--snapshot SNAPSHOT] [--sql-server-conf SQL_SERVER_CONF]
                     [--ssh-host SSH_HOST] [--ssh-key SSH_KEY]
                     [--ssh-port SSH_PORT] [--ssh-username SSH_USERNAME]
                     [--storage STORAGE]
                     [--syslog-log-facility SYSLOG_LOG_FACILITY]
                     [--upload-limit UPLOAD_LIMIT] [--use-syslog]
                     [--use-syslog-rfc-format] [--verbose] [--version]
                     [--watch-log-file]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --action ACTION       Set the action to be taken. backup and restore are
                        self explanatory, info is used to retrieve info from
                        the storage media, exec is used to execute a script,
                        while admin is used to delete old backups and other
                        admin actions. Default backup.
  --always-level ALWAYS_LEVEL
                        Set backup maximum level used with tar to implement
                        incremental backup. If a level 3 is specified, the
                        backup will be executed from level 0 to level 3 and to
                        that point always a backup level 3 will be executed.
                        It will not restart from level 0. This option has
                        precedence over --max-backup-level. Default False
                        (Disabled)
  --backup-name BACKUP_NAME, -N BACKUP_NAME
                        The backup name you want to use to identify your
                        backup on Swift
  --cinder-vol-id CINDER_VOL_ID
                        Id of cinder volume for backup
  --cinder-vol-name CINDER_VOL_NAME
                        Name of cinder volume for backup
  --cindernative-vol-id CINDERNATIVE_VOL_ID
                        Id of cinder volume for native backup
  --command COMMAND     Command executed by exec action
  --compression COMPRESSION
                        compression algorithm to use. gzip is default
                        algorithm
  --config CONFIG       Config file abs path. Option arguments are provided
                        from config file. When config file is used any option
                        from command line provided take precedence.
  --config-dir DIR      Path to a config directory to pull \*.conf files from.
                        This file set is sorted, so as to provide a
                        predictable parse order if individual options are
                        over-ridden. The set is parsed after the file(s)
                        specified via previous --config-file, arguments hence
                        over-ridden options in the directory take precedence.
  --config-file PATH    Path to a config file to use. Multiple config files
                        can be specified, with values in later files taking
                        precedence. Defaults to None.
  --container CONTAINER, -C CONTAINER
                        The Swift container (or path to local storage) used to
                        upload files to
  --debug, -d           If set to true, the logging level will be set to DEBUG
                        instead of the default INFO level.
  --dereference-symlink DEREFERENCE_SYMLINK
                        Follow hard and soft links and archive and dump the
                        files they refer to. Default False.
  --download-limit DOWNLOAD_LIMIT
                        Download bandwidth limit in Bytes per sec. Can be
                        invoked with dimensions (10K, 120M, 10G).
  --dry-run             Do everything except writing or removing objects
  --encrypt-pass-file ENCRYPT_PASS_FILE
                        Passing a private key to this option, allow you to
                        encrypt the files before to be uploaded in Swift.
                        Default do not encrypt.
  --exclude EXCLUDE     Exclude files,given as a PATTERN.Ex: --exclude '\*.log'
                        will exclude any file with name ending with .log.
                        Default no exclude
  --hostname HOSTNAME, --restore_from_host HOSTNAME
                        Set hostname to execute actions. If you are executing
                        freezer from one host but you want to delete objects
                        belonging to another host then you can set this option
                        that hostname and execute appropriate actions. Default
                        current node hostname.
  --insecure            Allow to access swift servers without checking SSL
                        certs.
  --log-config-append PATH, --log_config PATH
                        The name of a logging configuration file. This file is
                        appended to any existing logging configuration files.
                        For details about logging configuration files, see the
                        Python logging module documentation. Note that when
                        logging configuration files are used all logging
                        configuration is defined in the configuration file and
                        other logging configuration options are ignored.
  --log-date-format DATE_FORMAT
                        Defines the format string for %(asctime)s in log
                        records. Default: None . This option is ignored if
                        log_config_append is set.
  --log-dir LOG_DIR, --logdir LOG_DIR
                        (Optional) The base directory used for relative
                        log_file paths. This option is ignored if
                        log_config_append is set.
  --log-file PATH, --logfile PATH
                        (Optional) Name of log file to send logging output to.
                        If no default is set, logging will go to stderr as
                        defined by use_stderr. This option is ignored if
                        log_config_append is set.
  --lvm-dirmount LVM_DIRMOUNT
                        Set the directory you want to mount the lvm snapshot
                        to. If not provided, a unique name will be generated
                        with thebasename /var/lib/freezer
  --lvm-snap-perm LVM_SNAPPERM
                        Set the lvm snapshot permission to use. If the
                        permission is set to ro The snapshot will be immutable
                        - read only -. If the permission is set to rw it will
                        be mutable
  --lvm-snapname LVM_SNAPNAME
                        Set the name of the snapshot that will be created. If
                        not provided, a unique name will be generated.
  --lvm-snapsize LVM_SNAPSIZE
                        Set the lvm snapshot size when creating a new
                        snapshot. Please add G for Gigabytes or M for
                        Megabytes, i.e. 500M or 8G. It is also possible to use
                        percentages as with the -l option of lvm, i.e. 80%FREE
                        Default 1G.
  --lvm-srcvol LVM_SRCVOL
                        Set the lvm volume you want to take a snaphost from.
                        Default no volume
  --lvm-volgroup LVM_VOLGROUP
                        Specify the volume group of your logical volume. This
                        is important to mount your snapshot volume. Default
                        not set
  --max-level MAX_LEVEL
                        Set the backup level used with tar to implement
                        incremental backup. If a level 1 is specified but no
                        level 0 is already available, a level 0 will be done
                        and subsequently backs to level 1. Default 0 (No
                        Incremental)
  --max-priority MAX_PRIORITY
                        Set the cpu process to the highest priority (i.e. -20
                        on Linux) and real-time for I/O. The process priority
                        will be set only if nice and ionice are installed
                        Default disabled. Use with caution.
  --max-segment-size MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, -M MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE
                        Set the maximum file chunk size in bytes to upload to
                        swift Default 33554432 bytes (32MB)
  --metadata-out METADATA_OUT
                        Set the filename to which write the metadata regarding
                        the backup metrics. Use '-' to output to standard
                        output.
  --mode MODE, -m MODE  Set the technology to back from. Options are, fs
                        (filesystem),mongo (MongoDB), mysql (MySQL), sqlserver
                        (SQL Server) Default set to fs
  --mysql-conf MYSQL_CONF
                        Set the MySQL configuration file where freezer
                        retrieve important information as db_name, user,
                        password, host, port. Following is an example of
                        config file: # backup_mysql_confhost = <db-host>user =
                        <mysqluser>password = <mysqlpass>port = <db-port>
  --no-incremental NO_INCREMENTAL
                        Disable incremental feature. By default freezer build
                        the meta data even for level 0 backup. By setting this
                        option incremental meta data is not created at all.
                        Default disabled
  --nodebug             The inverse of --debug
  --nodry-run           The inverse of --dry-run
  --noinsecure          The inverse of --insecure
  --nooverwrite         The inverse of --overwrite
  --noquiet             The inverse of --quiet
  --nouse-syslog        The inverse of --use-syslog
  --nouse-syslog-rfc-format
                        The inverse of --use-syslog-rfc-format
  --nova-inst-id NOVA_INST_ID
                        Id of nova instance for backup
  --nova-inst-name NOVA_INST_NAME
                        Name of nova instance for backup
  --noverbose           The inverse of --verbose
  --nowatch-log-file    The inverse of --watch-log-file
  --os-identity-api-version OS_IDENTITY_API_VERSION, --os_auth_ver OS_IDENTITY_API_VERSION
                        OpenStack identity api version, can be 1, 2, 2.0 or 3
  --overwrite           With overwrite removes files from restore path before
                        restore.
  --path-to-backup PATH_TO_BACKUP, -F PATH_TO_BACKUP
                        The file or directory you want to back up to Swift
  --proxy PROXY         Enforce proxy that alters system HTTP_PROXY and
                        HTTPS_PROXY, use '' to eliminate all system proxies
  --quiet, -q           Suppress error messages
  --remove-from-date REMOVE_FROM_DATE
                        Checks the specified container and removes objects
                        older than the provided datetime in the form 'YYYY-MM-
                        DDThh:mm:ss' i.e. '1974-03-25T23:23:23'. Make sure the
                        'T' is between date and time
  --remove-older-than REMOVE_OLDER_THAN, -R REMOVE_OLDER_THAN
                        Checks in the specified container for object older
                        than the specified days. If i.e. 30 is specified, it
                        will remove the remote object older than 30 days.
                        Default False (Disabled)
  --restart-always-level RESTART_ALWAYS_LEVEL
                        Restart the backup from level 0 after n days. Valid
                        only if --always-level option if set. If --always-
                        level is used together with --remove-older-than, there
                        might be the chance where the initial level 0 will be
                        removed. Default False (Disabled)
  --restore-abs-path RESTORE_ABS_PATH
                        Set the absolute path where you want your data
                        restored. Default False.
  --restore-from-date RESTORE_FROM_DATE
                        Set the date of the backup from which you want to
                        restore.This will select the most recent backup
                        previous to the specified date (included). Example: if
                        the last backup was created at '2016-03-22T14:29:01'
                        and restore-from-date is set to '2016-03-22T14:29:01',
                        the backup will be restored successfully. The same for
                        any date after that, even if the provided date is in
                        the future. However if restore-from-date is set to
                        '2016-03-22T14:29:00' or before, that backup will not
                        be found. Please provide datetime in format 'YYYY-MM-
                        DDThh:mm:ss' i.e. '1979-10-03T23:23:23'. Make sure the
                        'T' is between date and time Default None.
  --snapshot SNAPSHOT, -s SNAPSHOT
                        Create a snapshot of the fs containing the resource to
                        backup. When used, the lvm parameters will be guessed
                        and/or the default values will be used, on windows it
                        will invoke vssadmin
  --sql-server-conf SQL_SERVER_CONF
                        Set the SQL Server configuration file where freezer
                        retrieve the sql server instance. Following is an
                        example of config file: instance = <db-instance>
  --ssh-host SSH_HOST   Remote host for ssh storage only
  --ssh-key SSH_KEY     Path to ssh-key for ssh storage only
  --ssh-port SSH_PORT   Remote port for ssh storage only (default 22)
  --endpoint            Endpoint of S3 compatible storage
  --access-key          Access key for S3 compatible storage
  --secret-key          Secret key for S3 compatible storage
  --ssh-username SSH_USERNAME
                        Remote username for ssh storage only
  --storage STORAGE     Storage for backups. Can be Swift, Local, SSH and S3
                        compatible now. Swift is default storage now. Local
                        stores backups on the same defined path and swift, s3
                        will store files in container.
  --syslog-log-facility SYSLOG_LOG_FACILITY
                        Syslog facility to receive log lines. This option is
                        ignored if log_config_append is set.
  --upload-limit UPLOAD_LIMIT
                        Upload bandwidth limit in Bytes per sec. Can be
                        invoked with dimensions (10K, 120M, 10G).
  --use-syslog          Use syslog for logging. Existing syslog format is
                        DEPRECATED and will be changed later to honor RFC5424.
                        This option is ignored if log_config_append is set.
  --use-syslog-rfc-format
                        Enables or disables syslog rfc5424 format for logging.
                        If enabled, prefixes the MSG part of the syslog
                        message with APP-NAME (RFC5424). This option is
                        ignored if log_config_append is set.
  --verbose, -v         If set to false, the logging level will be set to
                        WARNING instead of the default INFO level.
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  --watch-log-file      Uses logging handler designed to watch file system.
                        When log file is moved or removed this handler will
                        open a new log file with specified path
                        instantaneously. It makes sense only if log_file
                        option is specified and Linux platform is used. This
                        option is ignored if log_config_append is set.


Scheduler Options
-----------------

To get an updated sample of freezer-scheduler configuration you the following command::

    oslo-config-generator --config-file config-generator/scheduler.conf

you will find the update sample file in etc/scheduler.conf.sample

Agent Options
-------------

To list options available in freezer-agent use the following command::

    oslo-config-generator --namespace freezer --namespace oslo.log

this will print all options to the screen you direct the output to a file if you want::

    oslo-config-generator --namespace freezer --namespace oslo.log --output-file etc/agent.conf.sample


Bandwidth limitation (Trickle)
------------------------------

Trickle for bandwidth limiting (How it works ):

We have 3 cases to handle:

1. User used ``--upload-limit`` or ``--download-limit`` from the CLI
2. User used configuration files to execute an action
3. A combination of both of these options.

User used --upload-limit or -download-limit from the CLI
========================================================
We need to remove these limits from the cli arguments and then run trickle
using subprocess

EX::

    # freezer-agent --action backup -F /etc/ -C freezer --upload-limit = 1k

this will be translated to::

    # trickle -u 1024 -d -1 freezer-agent --action backup -F /etc/ -C freezer

User used config files to execute an action
===========================================

We need to create a new config file without the limits So we will get the all
the arguments provided and remove limits then run trickle using subprocess

EX: We have a config file contains::

    [default]
    action = backup
    storage = ssh
    ssh_host = 127.0.0.1
    ssh_username = saad
    ssh_key = /home/saad/.ssh/saad
    container = /home/saad/backups_freezers
    backup_name = freezer_jobs
    path_to_backup = /etc
    upload_limit=2k
    download_limit=1k

and we are going to execute this job as follow::

    freezer-agent --config /home/user/job1.ini

this will be translated to::

    trickle -u 2048 -d 1024 freezer-agent --config /tmp/freezer_job_x21aj29

The new config file has the following arguments::

    [default]
    action = backup
    storage = ssh
    ssh_host = 127.0.0.1
    ssh_username = saad
    ssh_key = /home/saad/.ssh/saad
    container = /home/saad/backups_freezers
    backup_name = freezer_jobs
    path_to_backup = /etc

Hybrid approach using config file and CLI options
=================================================

We will use a mix of both procedures:

* remove limits (cli or config )
* reproduce the same command again with trickle

EX::

 $ freezer-agent --config /home/user/job2.ini --upload-limit 1k

The Freezer logo is released under the licence Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY3.0).
