Using the S3 Storage Plugin with gpbackup and gprestore

The S3 plugin lets you use an Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) location to store and retrieve backups when you run gpbackup and gprestore.

To use the S3 plugin, you specify the location of the plugin and the AWS login and backup location in a configuration file. When you run gpbackup or gprestore, you specify the configuration file with the option --plugin-config.

If you perform a backup operation with the gpbackup option --plugin-config, you must also specify the --plugin-config option when you restore the backup with gprestore.

The S3 plugin supports both AWS and custom storage servers that implement the S3 interface.

Pre-Requisites

The project requires the Go Programming language at the version given by the go directive in go.mod, or newer. Follow the directions here for installation, usage and configuration instructions.

Downloading

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/warehouse-pg/whpg-backup-s3-plugin.git
cd whpg-backup-s3-plugin

Building and installing binaries

Run these from the directory cloned above.

Build

make build

This will build the gpbackup_s3_plugin binary in $GOPATH/bin, or $HOME/go/bin if GOPATH is not set.

Install

make install

This will install the gpbackup_s3_plugin binary on all the segment hosts. Note that the WarehousePG environment must be sourced for this to work.

Test

make tools    # once, to install golangci-lint
make test

make test runs the linter, go vet, and the unit tests. Run make unit for the unit tests alone, which needs no additional tools.

S3 Storage Plugin Configuration File Format

The configuration file specifies the absolute path to the gpbackup_s3_plugin executable, AWS connection credentials, and S3 location.

The configuration file must be a valid YAML document in the following format:

executablepath: <absolute-path-to-gpbackup_s3_plugin>
options: 
  region: <aws-region>
  endpoint: <s3-endpoint>
  aws_access_key_id: <aws-user-id>
  aws_secret_access_key: <aws-user-id-key>
  bucket: <s3-bucket>
  folder: <s3-location>
  encryption: [on|off]
  http_proxy: <http-proxy>

executablepath is the absolute path to the plugin executable (eg: use the fully expanded path of $GPHOME/bin/gpbackup_s3_plugin).

Below are the s3 plugin options

Option Name	Description
region	aws region (will be ignored if endpoint is specified
endpoint	endpoint to a server implementing the S3 interface
aws_access_key_id	AWS S3 ID to access the S3 bucket location that stores backup files
aws_secret_access_key	AWS S3 passcode for the S3 ID to access the S3 bucket location
bucket	name of the S3 bucket. The bucket must exist with the necessary permissions
folder	S3 location for backups. During a backup operation, the plugin creates the S3 location if it does not exist in the S3 bucket.
encryption	Enable or disable SSL encryption to connect to S3. Valid values are on and off. On by default
http_proxy	your http proxy url
backup_max_concurrent_requests	concurrency level for any file's backup request
backup_multipart_chunksize	maximum buffer/chunk size for multipart transfers during backup
restore_max_concurrent_requests	concurrency level for any file's restore request
restore_multipart_chunksize	maximum buffer/chunk size for multipart transfers during restore

Example

This is an example S3 storage plugin configuration file that is used in the next gpbackup example command. The name of the file is s3-test-config.yaml.

executablepath: $GPHOME/bin/gpbackup_s3_plugin
options: 
  region: us-west-2
  aws_access_key_id: test-s3-user
  aws_secret_access_key: asdf1234asdf
  bucket: gpdb-backup
  folder: test/backup3

This gpbackup example backs up the database demo using the S3 storage plugin. The absolute path to the S3 storage plugin configuration file is /home/gpadmin/s3-test.

gpbackup --dbname demo --single-data-file --plugin-config /home/gpadmin/s3-test-config.yaml

The S3 storage plugin writes the backup files to this S3 location in the AWS region us-west-2.

gpdb-backup/test/backup3/backups/YYYYMMDD/YYYYMMDDHHMMSS/

Notes

The S3 storage plugin application must be in the same location on every WarehousePG host. The configuration file is required only on the coordinator host.

Using Amazon S3 to back up and restore data requires an Amazon AWS account with access to the Amazon S3 bucket. The Amazon S3 bucket permissions required are Upload/Delete for the S3 user ID that uploads the files and Open/Download and View for the S3 user ID that accesses the files.