Backup and Restore a Standalone or Frontend install¶

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Periodic backups of Chef server data are an essential part of managing and maintaining a healthy configuration and ensuring that important data can be restored, if required.

chef-server-ctl¶

For the majority of use cases, chef-server-ctl backup is the recommended way to take backups of the Chef server. Use the following commands for managing backups of Chef server data, and for restoring those backups.

Note

Starting in Chef server 12.10.0, a bug in the backup command produced backups that did not include the configuration data in the resulting tarball. This bug is now resolved. We recommend taking a new backup after upgrading to 12.12.0.

backup¶

The backup subcommand is used to back up all Chef server data. This subcommand:

Requires rsync to be installed on the Chef server prior to running the command
Requires a chef-server-ctl reconfigure prior to running the command
Should not be run in a Chef server configuration with an external PostgreSQL database; use knife ec backup instead
Puts the initial backup in the /var/opt/chef-backup directory as a tar.gz file; move this backup to a new location for safe keeping

Options

This subcommand has the following options:

-y, --yes: Use to specify if the Chef server can go offline during tar.gz-based backups.

Syntax

This subcommand has the following syntax:

$ chef-server-ctl backup

restore¶

The restore subcommand is used to restore Chef server data from a backup that was created by the backup subcommand. This subcommand may also be used to add Chef server data to a newly-installed server. This subcommand:

Requires rsync to be installed on the Chef server prior to running the command
Requires a chef-server-ctl reconfigure prior to running the command
Should not be run in a Chef server configuration with an external PostgreSQL database; use knife ec backup instead

Note

The restore command does not support transferring backups across different versions of Chef server. Backups taken with the backup command must restore to the same version of Chef server that was in use when they were created.

Options

This subcommand has the following options:

-c, --cleanse: Use to remove all existing data on the Chef server; it will be replaced by the data in the backup archive.
-d DIRECTORY, --staging-dir DIRECTORY: Use to specify that the path to an empty directory to be used during the restore process. This directory must have enough disk space to expand all data in the backup archive.

Syntax

This subcommand has the following syntax:

$ chef-server-ctl restore PATH_TO_BACKUP (options)

Examples

$ chef-server-ctl restore /path/to/tar/archive.tar.gz

DRBD High Availability¶

You can find information on restoring legacy high availability Chef servers in the Chef Docs archive. If you are still running Enterprise Chef server 11.x, please your CSM or Support.

Backup and restore a Chef Backend install¶

In a disaster recovery scenario, the backup and restore processes allow you to restore a data backup into a newly built cluster. It is not intended for the recovery of an individual machine in the chef-backend cluster or for a point-in-time rollback of an existing cluster.

Backup¶

Restoring your data in the case of an emergency depends on having previously made backups of:

the data in your Chef backend cluster
the configuration from your Chef server

To make backups for future use in disaster scenarios:

On a follower chef-backend node, run chef-backend-ctl backup
On a chef-server node run: chef-server-ctl backup --config-only
Move the tar archives created in steps (1) and (2) to a long-term storage location.

Restore¶

To restore a Chef backend-based Chef server cluster:

Restore the node and an IP address that can be used to reach the node on the first machine that you want to use in your new Chef backend cluster. The argument to the --publish_address option should be the IP address for reaching the node you are restoring.
```
chef-backend-ctl restore --publish_address X.Y.Z.W /path/to/backup.tar.gz
```
Join additional nodes to your Chef backend cluster. (If you are only testing and verifying your restore process you can test against a single Chef backend node and a single Chef server node.)
```
chef-backend-ctl join-cluster IP_OF_FIRST_NODE --publish_address IP_OF_THIS_NODE
```
Restore a chef-server from your backed up chef-server configuration (See step 2 in the backup instructions above). Alternatively, you can generate new configuration for this node and reconfigure it using the steps found in the installation instructions..
```
chef-server-ctl restore /path/to/chef-server-backup.tar.gz
```
Run the reindex command to re-populate your search index
```
chef-server-ctl reindex --all
```

Verify¶

We recommend periodically verifying your backup by restoring a single Chef backend node, a single Chef server node, and ensuring that various knife commands and chef-client runs can successfully complete against your backup.