Overview of Clusters

The Clusters Overview page provides backup-related information about all of the Kubernetes clusters that have been configured in or automatically discovered by CloudCasa.

From the menu bar, go to Clusters/Overview. In the list of cluster instances, you will see the name, description, version, status, tags, modified time, and creation time for each cluster instance. You can also filter and sort the cluster instance list by these values. Note that not all columns are displayed by default.

Cluster status includes the following states:

  • ACTIVE - The cluster is configured and the agent is running and connected.

  • DISCOVERED - The cluster was auto-discovered, but has not yet been congfigured.

  • PENDING - The cluster was previously ACTIVE, but the agent has lost its connection.

  • REGISTERED - The cluster is configured, but the agent has not yet connected to CloudCasa.

  • VELERO ERROR - The cluster is configured and the agent is running and connected, but it is unable to communicate with Velero (CloudCasa for Velero only).

Tip

The CloudCasa agent connects out to the CloudCasa service at the endpoint agent.cloudcasa.io:443, and all control traffic travels on this connection. This connection must be permitted by your network infrastructure. See Network Connectivity for details.

Click on a cluster name to open the Cluster Dashboard page for that cluster. Mouse-over the “Actions” icon for Edit and Delete options. Click the “Add cluster” button in the upper right to configure a new cluster.

Cluster Dashboard

You can drill down on any item in the cluster instance list to see additional information including:

  • Cluster name

  • Cluster ID

  • Connection status

  • Cluster metrics from the last 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days: - Job success percentage - PV backup coverage percentage - PV snapshot coverage percentage - Safelock coverage percentage

There are also tabs that display:

  • Backup jobs defined for the cluster

  • Restore jobs defined for the cluster

  • Migration jobs defined for the cluster

  • Replication jobs defined for the cluster

  • Recovery points available for the cluster

  • Activity (recent job runs) for the cluster

At the top of the page, controls are available to edit or delete the cluster and to define new jobs.

Adding a CloudCasa Pro cluster

Take the following steps to add a cluster in your CloudCasa account:

  1. Click Add cluster + to open the Add cluster pane.

  2. When asked if you want to manage an existing Velero instance, select No.

  3. Fill in the following fields:

    Name

    Enter a name for the cluster.

    Description (optional)

    Enter a description for the cluster.

    Add tags (optional)

    Enter the key-value pairs for the tags of the cluster. For example, team:marketing.

    Advanced options ► Default backup destination for cluster (optional)

    Select either one of the following options:

    • Use global default

    • CloudCasa Storage

    • My Storage

    See also

    See the following topics for more information about setting storage defaults:

    Advanced options ► Disable automatic agent updates

    Enabling this option will prevent the agent from automatically updating itself when an update is available. This is generally not recommended.

    Advanced options ► Image pull secret

    The name of the image pull secret in the cloudcasa-io namespace that will be used to pull CloudCasa agent images from the registry. Defining this may be necessary if you wish to pull agent images from your own registry (see below), or if you wish to authenticate to the public registry to prevent throttling of pull requests. By default, no secret will be used.

    Note: When setting or changing the image pull secret for a cluster that already has the agent installed, the agent must first be removed, the secret created in the cloudcasa-io namespace and configured here, and then the agent re-installed.

    See also

    For more information about defining secrets for private registry access, see the Kubernetes Documentation.

    Advanced options ► Private container registry for agent

    The private container registry from which CloudCasa agent container images will be pulled. For example, 12345678910.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com. Defining this is necessary only if this cluster cannot pull images from the default public container registry (e.g. Docker Hub). Note that agent automatic updates are disabled if a private container registry is defined.

    Clicking on the “show images” option under this field will display a list of the images that will need to be present in the private repo. You should transfer these from the appropriate public repo (e.g. Docker Hub) before proceeding, and arrange to update them in the future as necessary.

    Click Register.

  4. A dialog will open showing you different installation options for CloudCasa’s lightweight agent. Depending on the type of cluster you are registering, you may see options for automatic installation and manual installation using different methods (kubectl, Helm, etc.). To install using kubectl, you can simply copy the displayed command and run it on a host where kubeconfig is set up to connect to the cluster being registered. Click Close when you are done.

  5. The Edit Cluster pane is then displayed, showing the cluster ID and status, and allowing you to make changes to cluster settings, including to cluster access permissions by clicking the Permissions icon. Click Save to close the pane. Ensure that you can see the new cluster in the list and that its status has changed to ACTIVE before attempting backup and restore operations.

Adding a Velero cluster

Take the following steps to add a cluster in your CloudCasa account:

  1. Click Add cluster + to open the Add cluster pane.

  2. When asked if you want to manage an existing Velero instance, select Yes. Velero must already be installed on the cluster. The configuration of your existing Velero installation will discovered, but not modified.

  3. Fill in the following fields:

    Name

    Enter a name for the cluster.

    Description (optional)

    Enter a description for the cluster.

    Add tags (optional)

    Enter the key-value pairs for the tags of the cluster. For example, team:marketing.

    Advanced options ► Velero namespace to manage (optional)

    Enter name of the Velero namespace to manage. CloudCasa will normally automatically detect a Velero instance in a cluster. If multiple installations exist on a cluster, use this field to guide Velero to manage a specific instance. CloudCasa for Velero can only manage one Velero instance per cluster.

    Advanced options ► Disable automatic agent updates

    Enabling this option will prevent the agent from automatically updating itself when an update is available. This is generally not recommended.

    Advanced options ► Image pull secret

    The name of the image pull secret in the cloudcasa-io namespace that will be used to pull CloudCasa agent images from the registry. Defining this may be necessary if you wish to pull agent images from your own registry (see below), or if you wish to authenticate to the public registry to prevent throttling of pull requests. By default, no secret will be used.

    Note: When setting or changing the image pull secret for a cluster that already has the agent installed, the agent must first be removed, the secret created in the cloudcasa-io namespace and configured here, and then the agent re-installed.

    See also

    For more information about defining secrets for private registry access, see the Kubernetes Documentation.

    Advanced options ► Private container registry for agent

    The private container registry from which CloudCasa agent container images will be pulled. For example, 12345678910.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com. Defining this is necessary only if this cluster cannot pull images from the default public container registry (e.g. Docker Hub). Note that agent automatic updates are disabled if a private container registry is defined.

    Clicking on the “show images” option under this field will display a list of the images that will need to be present in the private repo. You should transfer these from the appropriate public repo (e.g. Docker Hub) before proceeding, and arrange to update them in the future as necessary.

    Note this setting is applicable only to CloudCasa Agent images and NOT to your Velero images.

    Click Register.

  4. A dialog will open showing you different installation options for CloudCasa’s lightweight agent. Depending on the type of cluster you are registering, you may see options for automatic installation and manual installation using different methods (kubectl, Helm, etc.). To install using kubectl, you can simply copy the displayed command and run it on a host where kubeconfig is set up to connect to the cluster being registered. Click Close when you are done.

  5. The Edit Cluster pane is then displayed, showing the cluster ID and status, and allowing you to make changes to cluster settings, including to cluster access permissions by clicking the Permissions icon. Click Save to close the pane. Ensure that you can see the new cluster in the list and that its status has changed to ACTIVE before attempting backup and restore operations.

Removing a CloudCasa Pro cluster

In the cluster list, click Remove and follow the instructions.

Attention

After removing the cluster, manually remove any PV snapshots that were created by CloudCasa as part of the cluster’s Snapshot backups.

After the cluster is removed from CloudCasa, run the following commands on the cluster node:

$ kubectl delete namespace/cloudcasa-io clusterrolebinding/cloudcasa-io

Removing a Velero cluster

In the cluster list, click Remove and follow the instructions.

Attention

After removing the cluster, manually remove any PV snapshots that were created by CloudCasa as part of the cluster’s Snapshot backups.

After the cluster is removed from CloudCasa, run the following commands on the cluster node to remove the CloudCasa agent:

$ kubectl delete namespace/cloudcasa-io clusterrolebinding/cloudcasa-io

You will no longer be able to view or manage the Velero resources on this cluster through CloudCasa. The Velero configuration on the cluster will not be affected.