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Backup and Restore Concourse with BOSH Backup and Restore (BBR)

Already backing up your Concourse?

If you already have a backup process implemented you should still verify that your backup process or job has created a recent backup, and validate that it is healthy before moving on. You can then skip this topic and move on to Upgrading your Concourse release.

Pivotal recommends that you perform backups with BOSH Backup and Restore (BBR). The process involves three parts:

  • Deploying the BOSH Backup and Restore SDK, deployed as a release to your BOSH environment
  • Installing the BOSH Backup and Restore CLI client
  • Performing the backup

If you have not used BBR before, the next section has setup instructions.

If you have already configured your Concourse deployment with a backup-and-restore-sdk release and already have the BBR client installed locally, you can skip to Performing a Backup below.

Tip: You can use the bosh releases command to see what you have installed so far.

Setup concourse-bosh-deployment Directory on Your Local Machine

To back up a deployed Concourse, you need to update that deployment with the BBR backup-and-restore-sdk. If you are starting from scratch on a new workstation, the instructions in this section cover cloning the concourse-bosh-deployment repository to a local directory, so that you can craft a new deployment with the appropriate release and configuration.

If you already have this repository cloned to a local directory, you can skip Step 1

  1. Clone the concourse-bosh-deployment repository by running the following command:

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    git clone https://github.com/concourse/concourse-bosh-deployment.git

  2. Move to the concourse-bosh-deployment directory:

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    cd concourse-bosh-deployment

    All the paths used in this topic are relative to this directory.

  3. Checkout the release that corresponds to your working version of Concourse. For example, if you are backing up Concourse 3.13.3:

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    git checkout v3.13.3

    For a list of all Concourse releases, see concourse-bosh-deployment in GitHub.

    Success

    Checking out a release rather than a branch means that git produces the following output:

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    Note: checking out 'RELEASE'.

You are in 'detached HEAD' state. You can look around, make experimental
changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in this
state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.

If you want to create a new branch to retain commits you create, you may
do so (now or later) by using -b with the checkout command again. Example:

  git checkout -b <new-branch-name>

HEAD is now at HASH... COMMIT-MESSAGE

Set Up Certificates, Log In, and Alias Your BOSH Environment

Note

If you already have your CA certificate and have already logged in to and aliased your BOSH environment, you can skip this section.

  1. Get a CA certificate for your BOSH Director.

    1. If you created your BOSH Director manually, retrieve the credentials that were created during setup.

      If you are working with an Ops Manager-deployed BOSH Director, log in to Ops Manager and access the following endpoint in your Ops Manager domain:

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      https://OPS-MANAGER-DOMAIN/api/v0/security/root_ca_certificate

      Where OPS-MANAGER-DOMAIN is the Ops Manager domain.

      The JSON response you receive has a key-value pair. The CA certificate is the returned value, between the quotation marks, that starts with -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- and ends with -----END CERTIFICATE-----.

    2. Copy and paste the CA certificate into a file, with all instances of \n replaced by carriage returns.

      Pasting the CA Certificate

      In most shells in OSX, you can use the pbpaste command to access the contents of your clipboard. After copying the CA certificate to your clipboard, you can then run this command to format it correctly when pasting:

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       echo -e "$(pbpaste)" > ca-cert.yml
      Alternatives for Pasting the CA Certificate

      Two alternatives for pasting the CA certificate include:

      1. Using the command-line JSON processor jq to translate the JSON when pasting
      2. Pasting the value into a file and replacing the newline characters with carriage returns using the find and replace operation in a text editor

    3. Ensure the file is formed correctly, with -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- at the beginning and -----END CERTIFICATE----- at the end, by running:

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      cat ca-cert.yml

      Tip

      This certificate file can be used whenever a CLI command asks for a --ca-cert flag and value.

  2. Ensure you are logged in to your BOSH environment with the appropriate BOSH Director credentials. For example, if you saved your CA certificate as ca-cert.yml, run the following command:

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    bosh -e BOSH-ENVIRONMENT-IP login --ca-cert=ca-cert.yml

    Where BOSH-ENVIRONMENT-IP is your BOSH environment IP address.

    Finding director credentials

    If you set up a BOSH Director directly, the director credentials were returned as a file after the setup process finished.

    If you have an Ops Manager-deployed BOSH Director, you can find the director credentials in the Ops Manager credentials tab or at the following endpoint in your Ops Manager domain:

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    http://OPS-MANAGER-DOMAIN/api/v0/deployed/director/credentials/director_credentials

    Where OPS-MANAGER-DOMAIN is your Ops Manager domain.

  3. Give your environment an alias by running the following command:

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    bosh -e BOSH-ENVIRONMENT-IP alias-env ALIAS --ca-cert=ca-cert.yml

    Where:

    • BOSH-ENVIRONMENT-IP is your BOSH environment IP address
    • ALIAS is the alias you're creating BOSH environment

    Using an alias for your BOSH environment substantially reduces the keystrokes needed for commands in future.

    Tip

    You can use this alias whenever you target this environment by using the -e flag in a BOSH command.

Set Up the BBR SDK on Your BOSH Environment

This section details the task of uploading the BOSH backup-and-restore-sdk release to a Concourse environment.

  1. Upload the backup-and-restore-sdk release by running the upload-release following command:

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    bosh \
-e BOSH-ENVIRONMENT-ALIAS \
upload-release \
--sha1 364838c384f2edec80866b4abf2397c4c5d15c62 \
https://bosh.io/d/github.com/cloudfoundry-incubator/backup-and-restore-sdk-release?v=1.15.1

    Tip

    An alternative approach is to download the latest release from the BOSH Backup and Restore Release Page and pass in the path to the file in the following format:

    bosh -e BOSH-ENVIRONMENT-ALIAS upload-release PATH-TO-FILE

    If you run the bosh releases command again, you should see backup-and-restore-sdk in the list now.

  2. Create and edit a file called bbr.yml in ./cluster/operations. For example:

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    vim ./cluster/operations/bbr.yml

  3. Edit this file so that it has the following contents:

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    - type: replace
  path: /releases/-
  value:
    name: backup-and-restore-sdk
    url: https://bosh.io/d/github.com/cloudfoundry-incubator/backup-and-restore-sdk-release?v=((bbr_sdk_version))
    sha1: ((bbr_sdk_sha1))
    version: ((bbr_sdk_version))

- type: replace
  path: /instance_groups/name=web/jobs/-
  value:
    name: bbr-atcdb
    properties:
      postgresql:
        database: atc
        role:
          name: ((postgres_role))
          password: ((postgres_password))
      postgresql_database: atc
    release: concourse

- type: replace
  path: /instance_groups/name=web/jobs/-
  value:
    name: database-backup-restorer
    release: backup-and-restore-sdk

  4. Save and close the bbr.yml file.

  5. Open your versions.yml file

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    vim versions.yml

  6. Update versions.yml by adding lines for the backup-and-restore-sdk's version and SHA1. The two properties you need to define are bbr_sdk_version and bbr_sdk_sha1.

    To deploy backup-and-restore-sdk 1.15.1, copy and paste the highlighted lines into your versions.yml file:

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    # this file is partially maintained by CI; the concourse and garden-runc
# versions and sha1s are automatically bumped, while the rest are preserved
# as-is.
#
# this should make getting started easy while being easy enough to maintain
# manually. feel free to PR sane defaults along with newly supported
# infrastructures and such!
---
concourse_version: '3.13.3'
concourse_sha1: 'aaa4e4d42adb2293abc79422351ca71ed548f95c'
garden_runc_version: '1.13.1'
garden_runc_sha1: '54cbb89cae1be0708aa056185671665d7f4b2a4f'
postgres_version: '28'
postgres_sha1: 'c1fcec62cb9d2e95e3b191e3c91d238e2b9d23fa'
virtualbox_cpi_version: '0.0.12'
virtualbox_cpi_sha1: 537c77b087eeda859b1eb89553efa6f808214d50
virtualbox_stemcell_version: '3468.5'
virtualbox_stemcell_sha1: 25301a41c15caad859b66efc0fd75bacdfc57dab
bbr_sdk_version: '1.15.1'
bbr_sdk_sha1: '364838c384f2edec80866b4abf2397c4c5d15c62'

    If you want to use a different version of backup-and-restore-sdk-release, see backup-and-restore-sdk Release to find the version and SHA1 for your release.

Concourse and BOSH Variables

Deploying Concourse with BOSH requires you to set some variables to fill in details in the manifest that are written as placeholders. These are in the format ((placeholder)). The currently deployed Concourse manifest contains the values that you will use to fill out each of the variables.

The preferred approach is to create a file to define a key/value pair for each required variable, and check it into version control so that it can be safely and easily maintained over time. You might already have a solution for this; if not, follow the steps below.

Tip

The following steps describe setting variables that are necessary for deployment in a yaml file. If you prefer to set them on the command line when you run bosh deploy, you can pass them in with the --var KEY=VALUE flag and syntax. For more information about bosh deploy, see Deploy in the BOSH documentation.

  1. Run the following command to fetch the manifest and put it in a deployed-manifest.yml file:

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    bosh \
-e BOSH-ENVIRONMENT-ALIAS \
-d NAME-OF-CONCOURSE-DEPLOYMENT \
manifest > deployed-manifest.yml

    Sending the response to a file is a security precaution that ensures that any included keys aren't echoed to your terminal session history. Remember to destroy this file once you're done with this backup process!

  2. If you do not already have a variable file from a previous deployment, create a file to store your Concourse and BOSH-related environment variables. For example, use vim to create a file called variables.yml by running:

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    vim variables.yml

    This file will hold all of the variables that BOSH needs to interpolate into references in the manifest file.

    Why create a file for these variables?

    The benefit of doing things this way is that you can check this file into your version control, track changes over time, and more easily document and share this information with others in your organization. This also saves you from looking up configuration details every time you need to change your Concourse deployment).

  3. Ensure you have the correct key/value pairs in your variables file:

    • If you already have a variables file: Ensure that you have each of the key/value pairs listed in the snippet below. If any are missing, add them in.
    • If you have created a new file: Copy and paste the following snippet to use as a template. Replace each value placeholder in the snippet above as appropriate for your deployment and cloud configuration, using the properties in the deployed-manifest.yml file that created in step 1 of this section.
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    ---
deployment_name: DEPLOYMENT-NAME
db_persistent_disk_type: PERSISTANT-DISK-TYPE-FOR-DATABASE
db_vm_type: VM-TYPE-FOR-DATABASE-INSTANCE
external_url: EXTERNAL-URL
network_name: NETWORK-NAME
postgres_password: PASSWORD
web_ip: WEB-IP
web_network_name: WEB-NETWORK-NAME
web_vm_type: VM-TYPE-FOR-WEB-INSTANCE
worker_vm_type: VM-TYPE-FOR-WORKER-INSTANCE

    Where:

    • DEPLOYMENT-NAME is your Concourse deployment name. You can find this by running:

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      bosh -e BOSH-ENVIRONMENT-ALIAS deployments

    • NETWORK-NAME is the name subproperty of the network property in your deployed manifest.

    • PASSWORD is the password sub-property of the postgres property in your deployed manifest.

    Tip

    If your Concourse is deployed with something like CredHub, these variables might be automatically interpolated after instead of during deployment. If you suspect this is the case, one way to check is with the following command:

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    bosh \
-e BOSH-ENVIRONMENT-ALIAS \
-d TARGET-CONCOURSE-DEPLOYMENT \
manifest | grep “(("

    This searches through your deployed manifest for any placeholders that are being interpolated after deployment. If this returns any values, this could indicate that you have something like CredHub involved. Before you proceed, stop to investigate your current deployment, or get in touch with whomever has the necessary context.

  4. Save and close the file.

Confirm Your Availability Zones and Stemcells

The Concourse manifest has some defaults set for availability zones (AZs). You need to modify these defaults to suit a given environment. To ensure these are set correctly, follow these steps:

  1. Retrieve the values of the azs properties in your currently deployed manifest.

    To find these, reference the deployed-manifest.yml file created in the last section, or run the bosh manifest command to re-create it:

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    bosh \
-e BOSH-ENVIRONMENT-ALIAS \
-d CONCOURSE-DEPLOYMENT-NAME \
manifest > deployed-manifest.yml

  2. Open the concourse-bosh-deployment repository's cluster Concourse manifest file:

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    vim ./cluster/concourse.yml

  3. Search through this manifest file to find any azs properties and edit each one of these so that they match the availability zones (azs) in your deployed-manifest.yml file. There should be three in total, one in each instance group.

    For example, if your availability zone is default:

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    ...
instance_groups:
- name: web
  ...
  azs: [default]
  ...

- name: db
  ...
  azs: [default]
  ...

- name: worker
  ...
  azs: [default]
  ...
...

  4. Next, search for every stemcell mentioned in ./cluster/concourse.yml and ensure the stemcell names match those you noted from your deployed-manifest.yml file.

  5. Save and close the ./cluster/concourse.yml file.

Deploy Your Updated Concourse Deployment with BBR

Deploy the new setup to your BOSH environment. The bosh deploy command uses a manifest that acts as a recipe for the deployment that you are creating on your cloud environment. When you run bosh deploy, you need to incorporate the following:

  • Your new concourse manifest, for example, ./cluster/concourse.yml
  • Your versions file, for example, versions.yml
  • Your environment variables, for example, variables.yml
  • Any required operations files, including the ./cluster/operations/bbr.yml file
  • A filename where BOSH can record and access cluster credentials, for example, cluster-creds.yml

Note

Operations files make substitutions in your manifest file to customize your deployment. The example below demonstrates a simple setup with basic authentication.

To change the authentication type, change the -o ./cluster/operations/basic-auth.yml line.

  1. Edit and run this snippet, substituting your environment alias and deployment name, along with any additional ops files you want to add.

    For Example:

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    bosh -e BOSH-ENVIRONMENT-ALIAS deploy -d CONCOURSE-DEPLOYMENT-NAME ./cluster/concourse.yml \
-l versions.yml \
-l variables.yml \
-o ./cluster/operations/bbr.yml \
-o ./cluster/operations/no-auth.yml \
-o ./cluster/operations/privileged-http.yml \
-o ./cluster/operations/static-web.yml \
--vars-store cluster-creds.yml

    When prompted to review the deployment, you should see the addition of the backup-and-restore-sdk and its configuration. If you continue, BOSH prepares the deployment and starts compiling packages for you.

    Note

    If you have CPI errors, try running the deployment script again. In rare cases the operation can time out while packages are being built, causing a CPI timeout. The deployment should be successful if you re-run it a second time, as by that point the packages are already built.

    Abstract

    If you're curious about how this operations file affects the release by logging in to the web VM with SSH and checking the contents of the /var/vcap/jobs directory:

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    bosh -d concourse ssh web/0
sudo su
cd /var/vcap/jobs
ls

    You should see the database-backup-restorer in the directory.

    Once you have verified the contents of the directory, run the command exit twice to close your ssh session and return to your working directory.

Install the BOSH Backup and Restore CLI

To install the BBR CLI on your computer, do the following:

  1. Check if BBR is already installed by running the following command. If this returns a version number instead of an error, you can skip to the next section.

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    bbr -v

  2. Download the latest release's asset file that corresponds to your operating system from the bosh-backup-and-restore GitHub repository. For example, Apple OSX users should download the darwin-amd64 file.

    Note

    There is no Windows release for the BBR CLI. If you are on Windows, you can SSH into a jumpbox where you can use a linux release of BBR. For instructions, see Installing BOSH Backup and Restore in the Cloud Foundry documentation. You can then continue to the Perform a Backup section below.

  3. Move the file into your local /bin and rename it to bbr by running the following command:

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    mv ~/Downloads/BBR-BINARY-FILE-NAME /usr/local/bin/bbr

  4. Make the file executable by running the following command:

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    chmod +x /usr/local/bin/bbr

Performing a Backup

To run a backup with the bbr command, do the following:

  1. Retrieve the UAA BBR Client Credentials, username and password, from the following endpoint on your environment:

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    https://YOUR-OPS-MANAGER-DOMAIN/api/v0/deployed/director/credentials/uaa_bbr_client_credentials

  2. Run bbr with the following command:

    Note

    In the following command, use the environment IP address instead of using the environment alias you used with the bosh commands above.

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    bbr deployment \
--target ENVIRONMENT-IP-ADDRESS \
--deployment TARGET-CONCOURSE-DEPLOYMENT-NAME \
--username UAA-BBR-USERNAME \
--password UAA-BBR-PASSWORD \
--ca-cert CA-CERTIFICATE-FILE \
backup

    A successful backup results in the creation of a directory named after your deployment name and the date and time of the backup.

  3. Move the backup directory to a secure location.

Warning

This backup might include sensitive information, such as passwords in builds, depending on how you have configured your pipelines.

When you are ready to continue with the upgrade process, proceed to the Upgrade Concourse guide.

If you need to restore a backup, see Performing a Restore.