Persist Application PVC Data During SMCP Upgrade

Problem

• Any non-SMCP components deployed on the management plane including PVC data gets lost post management plane upgrade.

Environment

• Self Managed Cloud Platform (SMCP) 5.9 and Higher
• Any PVC backed custom workload applications.

Cause

The SMCP Management Plane upgrade is designed in a way to take the backup of the Management Plane components and destroy the cluster and create new Management Plane cluster in required version and then restore the backup.

During the backup process, no data/volume other than Platform9 components are preserved. The custom data will be lost.

Resolution

The steps to backup the volumes associated with the required application pod's PV/PVC are mentioned below.

apiVersion: apps/v1

kind: StatefulSet

metadata:

  creationTimestamp: null

  labels:

    app: busybox

  name: busybox

spec:

  replicas: 3

  selector:

    matchLabels:

      app: busybox

  template:

    metadata:

      creationTimestamp: null

      labels:

        app: busybox

    spec:

      containers:

      - image: busybox

        name: busybox

        resources: {}

        command: ["/bin/sh"]

        args: ["-c", "sleep 600"]

        volumeMounts:

        - name: bb-volume

          mountPath: /mydata

  volumeClaimTemplates:

  - metadata:

      name: bb-volume

      namespace: default

    spec:

      storageClassName: local-path

      accessModes:

      - ReadWriteOnce

      resources:

        requests:

          storage: 500Mi

status: {}

BEFORE UPGRADE

• Perform graceful shutdown of the pods, wait till they are properly removed

$ kubectl scale sts busybox --replicas=0

• Identify the three busybox PVCs and match the name to the directory on disk. On each of the three nodes, move the PVC directory to the top level of /opt

$ mv /opt/pf9/volumes/csi/pvc-xxx-xxx-xxx /opt

• Take backup of all three PVCs and PVs. Ensure to repeat the same for the other two PVCs and PVs.

$ kubectl get pvc <pvc-name> -o yaml > busybox-0_pvc.yaml

​

$ kubectl get pv <pv-name> -o yaml > busybox-0_pv.yaml

• Edit all three PV backup files generated above and comment out the claimRef section.

spec:

  accessModes:

  - ReadWriteOnce

  capacity:

    storage: 500Mi

#  claimRef:

#    apiVersion: v1

#    kind: PersistentVolumeClaim

#    name: bb-volume-busybox-1

#    namespace: default

#    resourceVersion: "91195013"

#    uid: 1938ad09-1363-4d3f-ab7d-5cdfe2e6e29b

• Upgrade the SMCP Management Plane to the desired version.

AFTER UPGRADE

• Move the PVC data on the disk, back into the original directory on each node. Repeat this step on all three nodes for respective PVC.

$ mv /opt/pvc-xxx-xxx-xxx /opt/pf9/volumes/csi/

• Re-apply the PVs and PVCs.

$ kubectl apply -f busybox-0_pv.yaml

​

$ kubectl get pv pvc-1938ad09-1363-4d3f-ab7d-5cdfe2e6e29b

NAME                                       CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   RECLAIM POLICY   STATUS      CLAIM   STORAGECLASS   VOLUMEATTRIBUTESCLASS   REASON   AGE

pvc-1938ad09-1363-4d3f-ab7d-5cdfe2e6e29b   500Mi      RWO            Delete           Available           local-path     <unset>                          24s

• Apply the PVC post applying PV; the PVC should show Bound status. Repeat this with other PVCs & PVs.

$ kubectl apply -f busybox-0_pvc.yaml

​

$ kubectl get pvc bb-volume-busybox-0

NAME                  STATUS    VOLUME                                     CAPACITY      ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS   VOLUMEATTRIBUTESCLASS   AGE

bb-volume-busybox-0   Bound     pvc-1938ad09-1363-4d3f-ab7d-5cdfe2e6e29b   500Mi         RWO            local-path     <unset>                 2s

• Redeploy the application. The pods should attach to the volumes successfully and the previous data from the volumes will be utilised.