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Deploying Trilio For Kubernetes with Openshift ACM Policies

Introduction

Organizations are moving towards Kubernetes as an operating environment, and protecting the data is paramount. It’s their top-most priority to protect the business-critical data and set up a business continuity plan in case of a disaster. A cloud native backup and DR solution is the need of the hour, and the answer is Trilio for Kubernetes.
Trilio for Kubernetes is a cloud-native, application-centric data protection platform designed to support the scale, performance, and mobility requirements of Kubernetes container environments across any public or hybrid cloud environment. It offers backup and recovery of the entire application, including data, metadata, and Kubernetes objects. It is protected and can be restored from any point-in-time.
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes is a management solution designed to help organizations extend and scale Red Hat OpenShift, the leading enterprise Kubernetes platform. It enables management consistency across hybrid cloud deployments, including on-premises and public clouds.
Integration between Trilio for Kubernetes (T4K) and Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management for Kubernetes (RHACM) provides an automated solution to protect containers, Kubernetes, and cloud infrastructure using the policy framework. This powerful framework allows users to govern multiple clusters in the data center using policies. The T4K policies enable the users to protect their Openshift clusters and ensure continued protection for existing and new clusters.
This blog will walk us through how to deploy the T4K policies on RHACM. It’s an efficient way to protect your cloud workloads.

Prerequisites

Pre-requisites are as follows:

Install RHACM

Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management can be used to comply with enterprise and industry standards for aspects such as security and regulatory compliance, resiliency, and software engineering. Deviation from defined values for such standards represents a configuration drift, which can be detected using the built-in configuration policy controller of RHACM.

Deploy Trilio for Kubernetes (T4K) policies

In RHACM Policy Collection under the community section, the following 3 T4K policies are available.
Policy
Description
Prerequisites
Use this policy to install Trilio for Kubernetes Operator and a trial license on Openshift clusters with label "protected-by=triliovault"
Requires OpenShift 4.8 or later. Needs CSI Driver with snapshot capabilities, storageClass and volumeSnapshotClass. For more information, refer documentation​
Use this policy to create namespace based backup using Trilio for Kubernetes on Openshift clusters with label "protected-by=triliovault"
Requires OpenShift 4.8 or later. Note: Trilio for Kubernetes must be installed to use this policy. See the Policy to install Trilio for Kubernetes Operator. On the hub cluster, create a secret "aws-s3-secret" with S3 credentials and a configmap "aws-s3-configmap" with S3 bucket name, region name & thresholdCapacity in the namespace “default” where this policy is created (details given in the policy). For more information, refer documentation​
Use this policy to create namespace based backup using Trilio for Kubernetes and kyverno template on Openshift clusters with label "protected-by=triliovault". It creates backup of the namespaces having a label "protected-by=tvk-ns-backup"
Requires OpenShift 4.8 or later. Note: Kyverno controller must be installed to use the kyverno policy. See the Policy to install Kyverno. Trilio for Kubernetes must be installed to use this policy. See the Policy to install Trilio for Kubernetes Operator. On the hub cluster, create a secret "aws-s3-secret" with S3 credentials and a configmap "aws-s3-configmap" with S3 bucket name, region name & thresholdCapacity in the namespace “default” where this policy is created (details given in the policy). For more information, refer documentation​
Let’s start with the policy to install Trilio for Kubernetes (T4K).

Install T4K using policy

We are going to use the policy to install T4K. This policy installs the latest T4K operator on any “Openshift” cluster with a label protected-by=triliovault.
For demo purposes, there are two OCP clusters; one of them runs RHACM and is the “hub” cluster. We can see that when we go to the “Cluster lifecycle” section of RHACM:
An important note here: One of the clusters was prepared with the label protected-by=triliovault
This RHACM has not yet created any T4K policies, so let’s start with our first example.
To start, let’s go to the bottom left group on the RHACM start page, and we’ll see the UI for Governance and risk (also called: The policy engine):
We click on “Create Policy”:
By default, we see the YAML code on the right side, which makes it also easy for us to import the above-mentioned first policy. Let’s go to the GitHub page, click on “Raw” for the policy YAML, and just copy the YAML code from GitHub into the YAML section of RHACM. Note: Before pasting into RHACM, clear the YAML section there. Typically you do a <ctrl>-a <ctrl>-c in the GitHub Window, and a <ctrl>-a <ctrl>-v in the RHACM window. After you paste the policy into that YAML-Edit Window in RHACM, you should have the following:
In the last line of the policy code, in the “PlacementRule” section, we see that this policy should be used on all clusters with labels vendor=OpenShift and protected-by=triliovault. This policy will be deployed on all “Openshift” clusters with user-defined label protected-by=triliovault. Before we can press the “Create” button, we still need to select a namespace in which this policy shall be executed. This is for internal organization reasons only; it does NOT affect the results of the policy engine itself. So, on the left-hand side, we can select the “default” namespace or any other namespace available on the hub cluster. The user can create some specific policy-engine namespaces in advance to be able to group them more efficiently. Also, we will not yet select the “Enforce if supported” button.
Before we create the policy, let’s again check the list of installed operators on the cluster itself in its OpenShift UI:
We see that T4K is not installed.
So, let’s create the policy by clicking on the “Submit” button in the “Create policy” dialog in RHACM.
We are forwarded to a screen, which after a couple of moments, looks like this:
We see that RHACM detected that the policy shall be used on 1 cluster and that the policy is NOT adhered to in this cluster. Therefore, we have one policy violation. We can click on the policy name to get a more detailed overview, and there we select the “Results” Tab:
We see: The required operator elements are missing, which is why the policy failed.
If we go back to the policy overview - Policies, where the policy is listed, we see three dots at the end of the line. If we click on those, we get a popup box in which we can select an action to the policy:
Click "Enforce" to confirm that action in the next popup box.
It takes a few minutes for enforcement of the Policy. When we again check the details of the policy, we see:
And we can confirm in our cluster with the protected-by=triliovault label that the operator has been installed:
This concludes how to install Trilio for Kubernetes (T4K) on the clusters managed by ACM. This policy will also protect the new clusters if those are Openshift clusters with a label protected-by=triliovault.

Protect a namespace in the cluster using the T4K backup creation policy

Now that the T4K is installed and a trial license created (as seen in the previous policy), we can start using the T4K. To get started with T4K in our environment, please ensure that all prerequisites are fulfilled as listed in the section above. Once done, we need to perform the following steps.
  1. 1.
    Create a T4K Target - Location where backups will be stored.
  2. 2.
    Create a backup plan - Details about the backup
  3. 3.
    Create a namespace-based backup
​Policy to create a namespace-based backup using Trilio for Kubernetes helps to achieve the above steps for a single namespace. Let's take a look at applying this policy. We created a namespace, “MySQL,” with the MySQL application running for the demo.
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# oc get all -n mysql
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
pod/k8s-demo-app-mysql-78dbddc54f-dtpd6 1/1 Running 0 1d
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
service/k8s-demo-app-mysql ClusterIP None <none> 3306/TCP 1d
NAME READY UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE AGE
deployment.apps/k8s-demo-app-mysql 1/1 1 1 1d
NAME DESIRED CURRENT READY AGE
replicaset.apps/k8s-demo-app-mysql-78dbddc54f 1 1 1 1d
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Let's quickly check the . As specified in the comments section, we need to create a secret “aws-s3-secret” and a configmap “aws-s3-configmap” in the namespace “default” where we are planning to place this policy on the hub cluster. These secret and configmap have AWS S3 details for target creation.
| cat <<EOF | oc apply -f - -n defaultapiVersion: v1kind: Secretmetadata:name: aws-s3-secretnamespace: defaulttype: OpaquestringData:accessKey: "PROVIDE_ACCESS_KEY"secretKey: "PROVIDE_SECRET_KEY"EOF| cat <<EOF | oc apply -f - -n defaultapiVersion: v1kind: ConfigMapmetadata:name: aws-s3-configmapnamespace: defaultdata:bucketName: "PROVIDE_S3_BUCKET_NAME"region: "PROVIDE_REGION"thresholdCapacity: "100Gi"EOFNow, let’s click on “Create Policy.” By default, we see the YAML code on the right side, which makes it also easy for us to import the policy. Let’s go to the GitHub page, click on “Raw” for the , and just copy the YAML code from GitHub into the YAML section of RHACM. Note: Before pasting into RHACM, clear the YAML section there. Typically you do a <ctrl>-a <ctrl>-c in the GitHub Window, and a <ctrl>-a <ctrl>-v in the RHACM window. After you paste the policy into that YAML-Edit Window in RHACM, you should have the following:Let's quickly check the . As specified in the comments section, we need to replace the namespace “test” used in the policy with “mysql” for which we need to create the backup. It can be easily done in YAML-Edit Window in RHACM.In the last line of the policy code, in the “PlacementRule” section, we see that this policy should be used on all clusters with labels vendor=OpenShift and protected-by=triliovault. This policy will be deployed on all “Openshift” clusters with user-defined label protected-by=triliovault. Before we can press the “Create” button, we still need to select a namespace in which this policy shall be executed. This is for internal organization reasons only; it does NOT affect the results of the policy engine itself. So, on the left-hand side, we can select the “default” namespace on the hub cluster.Click “Submit” to create the policy.We see that RHACM detected that the policy shall be used on 1 cluster and that the policy is NOT adhered to in this cluster. Therefore, we have one policy violation. We can click on the policy name to get a more detailed overview. If we go back to the policy overview - Policies, where the policy is listed, we see three dots at the end of the line. If we click on those, we get a popup box in which we can select an action “enforce” the policy:Click " Enforce " to confirm that action in the next popup box.It takes a few minutes for enforcement of the Policy. When we again check the details of the policy, we see:As seen in the above screenshot, the policy created a secret that uses AWS S3 credentials, a target to store backup data in the specified S3 bucket, a BackupPlan with a daily backup schedule, and a first full backup of the namespace “mysql”. With this, the namespace “mysql” is protected, and a new backup will be taken daily.We can also log in to T4K UI (refer on Openshift) and sign in via Openshift.Backups created for namespace “mysql” can be seen using Trilio management UI as below:This concludes how to create a namespace-based backup using T4K policy on the Openshift clusters with a label protected-by=triliovault managed by ACM.However, in this policy, we need to update the namespace's name to create the backup manually. Also, it is expected that the same namespace is present on all the Openshift clusters with a label protected-by=triliovault.It would be desirable to have a policy that will start protecting any namespace on any Openshift clusters matching the placement rule managed by ACM. Let’s take a look at a policy that does exactly that.Protect multiple namespaces in any cluster using the T4K backup creation policyBefore we begin, please ensure that all prerequisites are fulfilled as listed in the above. creates a backup of the namespaces having a label "protected-by=tvk-ns-backup" on all the Openshift clusters with label "protected-by=triliovault.” In addition to installing T4K, the Kyverno controller must be installed to use the kyverno policy. See the .NOTE - Please grant Kyverno's service account additional privileges for the namespaces.Once the prerequisites are met, this policy performs the following steps for each existing or newly created namespace, with the label "protected-by=tvk-ns-backup.”Create a T4K Target - Location where backups will be stored.Create a backup plan - Details about the backupCreate a namespace-based backupTo start applying this policy, let's quickly check the . As specified in the comments section, we need to create a secret “aws-s3-secret” and a configmap “aws-s3-configmap” in the namespace “default” where we are planning to place this policy on the hub cluster. These secret and configmap have AWS S3 details for target creation.| cat <<EOF | oc apply -f - -n defaultapiVersion: v1kind: Secretmetadata:name: aws-s3-secretnamespace: defaulttype: OpaquestringData:accessKey: "PROVIDE_ACCESS_KEY"secretKey: "PROVIDE_SECRET_KEY"EOF| cat <<EOF | oc apply -f - -n defaultapiVersion: v1kind: ConfigMapmetadata:name: aws-s3-configmapnamespace: defaultdata:bucketName: "PROVIDE_S3_BUCKET_NAME"region: "PROVIDE_REGION"thresholdCapacity: "100Gi"EOFLet’s go to the Governance → Policies section in the ACM. As we can see, install-tvk policy has been created and is compliant. That means T4K is installed and has a valid license.Now, let’s click on “Create Policy.” By default, we see the YAML code on the right side, which makes it also easy for us to import the policy. Let’s go to the GitHub page, click on “Raw” for the , and just copy the YAML code from GitHub into the YAML section of RHACM. Note: Before pasting into RHACM, clear the YAML section there. Typically you do a <ctrl>-a <ctrl>-c in the GitHub Window, and a <ctrl>-a <ctrl>-v in the RHACM window. After you paste the policy into that YAML-Edit Window in RHACM, you should have the following:In the last line of the policy code, in the “PlacementRule” section, we see that this policy should be used on all clusters with labels vendor=OpenShift and protected-by=triliovault. This policy will be deployed on all “Openshift” clusters with user-defined label protected-by=triliovault. Before we can press the “Create” button, we still need to select a namespace in which this policy shall be executed. This is for internal organization reasons only; it does NOT affect the results of the policy engine itself. So, on the left-hand side, we can select the “default” namespace on the hub cluster.Click “Submit” to create the policy.We see that RHACM detected that the policy shall be used on 1 cluster and that the policy is NOT adhered to in this cluster. Therefore, we have one policy violation. We can click on the policy name to get a more detailed overview. If we go back to the policy overview - Policies, where the policy is listed, we see three dots at the end of the line. If we click on those, we get a popup box in which we can select an action “enforce” the policy:Click " Enforce " to confirm that action in the next popup box.It takes a few minutes for enforcement of the Policy. When we again check the details of the policy, we see:The above screenshot shows that the policy created a Kyverno policy on the target cluster. This Kyverno policy monitors all the namespaces and creates a target to store backup data in the specified S3 bucket, a BackupPlan with a daily backup schedule, and a first full backup for all the namespaces with label protected-by=tvk-ns-backup. This is also applied to any new namespace created with the same label.Let’s log in to T4K UI (refer on Openshift) and sign in via Openshift.As seen in the above screenshot, there are no backups in the “Monitoring” → Cluster Dashboard in T4K UI. This is because there are no namespaces in the target cluster with the label protected-by=tvk-ns-backup.For the demo, we created a namespace, “postgres” with the PostgreSQL application running.| # oc get all -n postgresNAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGEpod/postgres-demo-0 1/1 Running 0 5m28spod/postgres-demo-1 1/1 Running 0 5m3sNAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGEservice/postgres NodePort 172.30.17.37 <none> 5432:30992/TCP 5m29sNAME READY AGEstatefulset.apps/postgres-demo 2/2 5m29sLet’s apply label protected-by=tvk-ns-backup to namespace “postgres”.| # oc label ns postgres protected-by=tvk-ns-backupnamespace/postgres labeledIt takes a few minutes for the Kyverno policy to come into effect. When we again check the details, we see:| # oc get target,backupplan,backup -n postgresNAME TYPE THRESHOLD CAPACITY VENDOR STATUS BROWSING ENABLEDtarget.triliovault.trilio.io/tvk-postgres-s3-target ObjectStore 100Gi AWS AvailableNAME TARGET RETENTION POLICY INCREMENTAL SCHEDULE FULL BACKUP SCHEDULE STATUSbackupplan.triliovault.trilio.io/tvk-postgres-backupplan tvk-postgres-s3-target trilio-daily-schedule-policy AvailableNAME BACKUPPLAN BACKUP TYPE STATUS DATA SIZE CREATION TIME START TIME END TIME PERCENTAGE COMPLETED BACKUP SCOPE DURATIONbackup.triliovault.trilio.io/tvk-postgres-backup tvk-postgres-backupplan Full Available 112328704 2022-09-29T10:15:03Z 2022-09-29T10:15:03Z 2022-09-29T10:23:22Z 100 Namespace 8m19.479134026sLet’s check “Monitoring” → Cluster Dashboard in T4K UI. Now we can see a backup created for namespace “postgres”.This concludes how to create a namespace-based backup using Kyverno-based T4K policy for all the namespaces with label protected-by=tvk-ns-backup on the Openshift clusters with a label protected-by=triliovault managed by ACM. It keeps existing as well as new namespaces protected. So just apply with label protected-by=tvk-ns-backup for any namespace to start protecting it.ConclusionTrilioVault for Kubernetes is a cloud-native, application-centric data protection platform designed to support the scale, performance, and mobility requirements of Kubernetes container environments across any public or hybrid cloud environment. It offers backup and recovery of the entire application, including data, metadata, and Kubernetes objects. It is protected and can be restored from any point-in-time.Trilio for Kubernetes (T4K) provides a wide range of helpful features, including:Native Kubernetes applicationStorage of metadata and all application resources to a specified targetSupport for Helm, Label, and Operators application deployment types and support for S3 or NFS-based backup targetsProvision of application hooks to ensure data consistent backupsACM Policies to install T4K and create backups for namespaces.T4K provides a strong platform for enterprise database backups. For more information on T4K, request a or your free trial today.References
Ecosystem - Previous
AWS RDS snapshots using T4K hooks
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T4K QuickStart Plugin
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