Volume Snapshots

Volume snapshots are copies of a persistent volume at a specific point in time. They can be used to restore a volume to a previous state or create a new volume. Mayastor provides support for industry standard copy-on-write (COW) snapshots, which is a popular methodology for taking snapshots by keeping track of only those blocks that have changed. Mayastor incremental snapshot capability enhances data migration and portability in Kubernetes clusters across different cloud providers or data centers. Using standard kubectl commands, you can seamlessly perform operations on snapshots and clones in a fully Kubernetes-native manner.

Use cases for volume snapshots include:

• Efficient replication for backups.

• Utilization of clones for troubleshooting.

• Development against a read-only copy of data.

Volume snapshots allow the creation of read-only incremental copies of volumes, enabling you to maintain a history of your data. These volume snapshots possess the following characteristics:

• Consistency: The data stored within a snapshot remains consistent across all replicas of the volume, whether local or remote.

• Immutability: Once a snapshot is successfully created, the data contained within it cannot be modified.

Currently, Mayastor supports the following operations related to volume snapshots:

1. Creating a snapshot for a PVC

2. Listing available snapshots for a PVC

3. Deleting a snapshot for a PVC

---

Prerequisites

1. Deploy and configure Mayastor by following the steps given here and create disk pools.

2. Create a Mayastor StorageClass with single replica.

Currently, Mayastor only supports snapshots for volumes with a single replica. Snapshot support for volumes with more than one replica will be available in the future versions.

Command (single replica)

cat <<EOF | kubectl create -f -
apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: StorageClass
metadata:
  name: mayastor-1
parameters:
  ioTimeout: "30"
  protocol: nvmf
  repl: "1"
provisioner: io.openebs.csi-mayastor
EOF

YAML (single replica)

apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: StorageClass
metadata:
  name: mayastor-1
parameters:
  ioTimeout: "30"
  protocol: nvmf
  repl: "1"
provisioner: io.openebs.csi-mayastor

3. Create a PVC using these steps and check if the status of the PVC is Bound.

Command

kubectl get pvc

Example Output

NAME                STATUS   VOLUME                                     CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS     AGE
ms-volume-claim     Bound    pvc-fe1a5a16-ef70-4775-9eac-2f9c67b3cd5b   1Gi        RWO            mayastor-1       15s

Copy the PVC name, for example, ms-volume-claim.

4. (Optional) Create an application by following these steps.

---

Create a Snapshot

You can create a snapshot (with or without an application) using the PVC. Follow the steps below to create a volume snapshot:

Step 1: Create a Kubernetes VolumeSnapshotClass object

Command

cat <<EOF | kubectl create -f -
kind: VolumeSnapshotClass
apiVersion: snapshot.storage.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: csi-mayastor-snapshotclass
  annotations:
    snapshot.storage.kubernetes.io/is-default-class: "true"
driver: io.openebs.csi-mayastor
deletionPolicy: Delete
EOF

YAML

kind: VolumeSnapshotClass
apiVersion: snapshot.storage.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: csi-mayastor-snapshotclass
  annotations:
    snapshot.storage.kubernetes.io/is-default-class: "true"
driver: io.openebs.csi-mayastor
deletionPolicy: Delete

Parameters	Type	Description
Name	String	Custom name of the snapshot class
Driver	String	CSI provisioner of the storage provider being requested to create a snapshot (io.openebs.csi-mayastor)

Apply VolumeSnapshotClass details

Command

kubectl apply -f class.yaml

Example Output

volumesnapshotclass.snapshot.storage.k8s.io/csi-mayastor-snapshotclass created

Step 2: Create the snapshot

Command

cat <<EOF | kubectl create -f -
apiVersion: snapshot.storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: VolumeSnapshot
metadata:
  name: mayastor-pvc-snap-1
spec:
  volumeSnapshotClassName: csi-mayastor-snapshotclass
  source:
    persistentVolumeClaimName: ms-volume-claim   
EOF

YAML

apiVersion: snapshot.storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: VolumeSnapshot
metadata:
  name: mayastor-pvc-snap-1
spec:
  volumeSnapshotClassName: csi-mayastor-snapshotclass
  source:
    persistentVolumeClaimName: ms-volume-claim   

Parameters	Type	Description
Name	String	Name of the snapshot
VolumeSnapshotClassName	String	Name of the created snapshot class
PersistentVolumeClaimName	String	Name of the PVC. Example- ms-volume-claim

Apply the snapshot

Command

kubectl apply -f snapshot.yaml

Example Output

volumesnapshot.snapshot.storage.k8s.io/mayastor-pvc-snap-1 created

When a snapshot is created on a thick-provisioned volume, the storage system automatically converts it into a thin-provisioned volume.

---

List Snapshots

To retrieve the details of the created snapshots, use the following command:

Command

kubectl get volumesnapshot 

Example Output

NAME                  READYTOUSE   SOURCEPVC         SOURCESNAPSHOTCONTENT   RESTORESIZE   SNAPSHOTCLASS                SNAPSHOTCONTENT                                    CREATIONTIME   AGE
mayastor-pvc-snap-1   true         ms-volume-claim                           1Gi           csi-mayastor-snapshotclass   snapcontent-174d9cd9-dfb2-4e53-9b56-0f3f783518df   57s            57s

Command

kubectl get volumesnapshotcontent

Example Output

NAME                                               READYTOUSE   RESTORESIZE   DELETIONPOLICY   DRIVER                    VOLUMESNAPSHOTCLASS          VOLUMESNAPSHOT        VOLUMESNAPSHOTNAMESPACE   AGE
snapcontent-174d9cd9-dfb2-4e53-9b56-0f3f783518df   true         1073741824    Delete           io.openebs.csi-mayastor   csi-mayastor-snapshotclass   mayastor-pvc-snap-1   default                   87s

---

Delete a Snapshot

To delete a snapshot, use the following command:

Command

kubectl delete volumesnapshot mayastor-pvc-snap-1  

Example Output

volumesnapshot.snapshot.storage.k8s.io "mayastor-pvc-snap-1" deleted