Knowledge base

This guide explains how to make a backup of a VPS Cloud in the form of snapshot.

Preamble

• A snapshot is like a photo of your VPS Cloud at a T-minute, which will contain everything on your server, including your operating system, applications, data, etc.
• Snapshots can be used especially for...
  • ...protect Your VPS Cloud in case of problem: If you encounter a problem with your VPS Cloud, you can restore a snapshot to a previous state.
  • ...test risk-free changes: Before making major changes to your VPS Cloud, you can create a snapshot so you can go back if necessary.
• You get it. a free snapshot to save your entire server in a dedicated space. In case of need, it is possible to order additional spaces or delete a snapshot to create a new one.
• Two types of backup are possible:
  1. Snapshot of the data: allows you to create a volume image that contains your data (not available for Windows distributions).
  2. Snapshot of the operating system: allows you to create a volume image that contains your operating system. This type of backup involves a few minutes interruption of your apps and websites.
• It is recommended to create snapshots regularly, e.g. once a week or per month; this will allow you to have a history of your VPS Cloud and to be able to go back in case of a problem.
• It is obviously possible to restore the state of the VPS Cloud thanks to the snapshot created earlier.

Create a snapshot

To this end:

1. Click here in order to access the management of your product on the Manager Infomaniak (Need help?).
2. Click directly on the nameallocated to the product concerned.
3. Click on Snapshot in the left side menu.
4. Click the blue button Create a snapshot:
   
5. Choose the type of snapshot to create ( data or operating system).
6. Click the blue button to start creating the snapshot:
   
7. An e-mail is sent when the snapshot is generated.

Remove a snapshot

To this end:

1. Click here in order to access the management of your product on the Manager Infomaniak (Need help?).
2. Click directly on the nameallocated to the product concerned.
3. Click on Snapshot in the left side menu.
4. Click on the action menu ⋮ to the right of the object concerned in the array that appears.
5. Click on Delete:
   

Order additional snapshots

To this end:

1. Click here in order to access the management of your product on the Manager Infomaniak (Need help?).
2. Click directly on the nameallocated to the product concerned.
3. Click on Snapshot in the left side menu.
4. Click on the supermarket shopping icon:
   
5. Follow the instructions to finalize the order.

It is not possible to order an additional snapshot if a snapshot is being made.

This guide explains how to restore a snapshot of the VPS Cloud Infomaniak.

Restore a snapshot

To this end:

1. Click here in order to access the management of your product on the Manager Infomaniak (Need help?).
2. Click directly on the nameallocated to the product concerned.
3. Click on Snapshot in the left side menu.
4. Click on the action menu ⋮ to the right of the object concerned in the array that appears.
5. Click on Restore:
   
6. Click the blue button to start restoring the snapshot.
7. An e-mail is sent when the snapshot is restored.

Restore operating system disk

Restoring the system volume as in the example above is an operation irreversible The operating system disk will be replaced by the snapshot and the server will be in the exact state of the backup date.

Data stored on data volume (vdb) is not affected by this operation.

Restore data disk (vdb)

Two modes of data restoration are possible:

1. Mode Read Only

If the size of the snapshot differs from the size of the volume, only this read-only mode is available.

This option allows to mount the image of the data snapshot, which allows read-only access to the data of the backup.

For information, here are some useful commands to exploit your backup:

• To access the main data volume: mount /dev/vdb /mnt/.
• To mount the data volume in a specific "backup" folder: mount -o nouuid -o ro,norecovery /dev/vdc /backup.

For which letter to use (/dev/vd?), use the command lsblk:

2. Mode --Restore

The restoration of data volume is an operation irreversible The data disk (vdb) will be replaced by the snapshot. At the end of the restoration, it will be necessary to trace the volume of the data so that your operating system refreshes the content.

The following procedure and orders are provided for information purposes only:

1. Make sure your data volume is not mounted:
   * umount /mnt (/mnt or location you chose to access your data).
2. Upload the data volume:
   * mount /dev/(vdb) /mnt

To know the name of the data volume attached to your server, use the command lsblk (see above).

This guide explains how to restore backups of previous versions of your files and other web data of your accommodation Infomaniak, and how to put in place an effective backup policy if the backups made available automatically and free of charge do not correspond or more to your needs in terms of availability or security.

Web hosting (Starter, Mutualized, Cloud Server)

Take note of these guides to restore automatic backups:

• of a whole accommodation (FTP + MySQL),
• of the specific files on hosting,
• of the Specific databases,
• of a Web application (Wordpress & Apps),
• of the Cloud Server SSH crons.

Take note of these guides to save and restore:

• accommodation with Swiss Backup and Acronis (simple),
• accommodation with Swiss Backup and Restic (advanced),
• WordPress with Swiss Backup,
• WordPress with an extension.

Also take note of https://faq.infomaniak.com/snapshot.

Accommodation v1 (old 60GB offer)

• View and/or download the automatic backup (versioning)of your data on your FTP space under /backups and /backup_mysql at the root of the domain (over /web).
• Restore this data.

Email

• Restore Messages from Infomaniak automatic backups.
• Restore contacts or events of the calendar.
• Save the current content of an email account:
  • in downloading current content in local,
  • in duplicate all current content to an emergency box,
  • in copying future e-mails as they arrive to an emergency box.

Domains / DNS areas

• Restore deleted DNS records from Infomaniak automatic backups.
• Restore one expired during the period of redemption.

Infomaniak does not perform any backups of the VPS Cloud / VPS Lite. However, you can still:
 

• create a server snapshot (non-automated backup)
• backup the server to Swiss Backup (automated backup)

This guide contains essential resources to get started with your VPS Cloud or VPS Lite proposed by Infomaniak.

Preamble

• It is not planned to take care of UEFI and Secure boot in the VPS Cloud/VPS Lite offer.
• It is not possible to migrate a file vmdk so it can work on OpenStack car KVM is used for virtualization.
• With regard to the opening of ports, take note of this other guide.

Which version of VPS choose?

• The configurations (vCPU / Ram / disk space) differ according to VPS offers, starting at 1 vCPU with very competitive prices - make your choice according to your needs; the evolution of a VPS Lite to a VPS Cloud is not yet automatic and reducing a subscribed offer is not possible.
• The same Linux distributions & versions of Windows are available (Windows is not available on the smallest configurations).
• On VPS Lite, the bandwidth is limited to 500 mbit/s and the SLA guaranteed + snapshots are not available.

VPS Cloud / VPS Lite Linux

• How to connect to your server via an SSH key?
• What Linux distributions are supported?
• Format and Mount Cloud Server Data Volume (important)

VPS Cloud / VPS Lite Windows

• How to connect to its Windows server?
• What versions of Windows are supported?

This guide details how to save data from your folders and nodes Jelastic Cloud via protocol OpenStack Swifton Swiss Backup the backup solution in an independent Swiss cloud.

Preamble

• In order to save data, an extension for Virtuozzo (Jelastic Cloud) is available in the node addons.
  • Read more on the extension (add-on) on Github.
• Do not look for the extension in the Marketplace, it is not there:
  

Configure Swiss Backup extension on Jelastic Cloud

Prerequisites

• Use Jelastic Cloud (at least one Jelastic environment must be active with the extension installed to make your backups visible).
• Possession of space Swiss Backup Infomaniak with an available device quota (minimum 1) for a Cloud backup.
• Add 1 device Type Cloud to get the parameters OpenStack Swift.

To add the useful extension to Swiss Backup on Jelastic Cloud:

1. Log in to Jelastic Cloud dashboard from your server.
2. See you on the add-on section of the node:
   
3. Look for and install the extension Backup / Restoration:
   
    

Two types of backup are then possible and detailed below:

1. Save specific folders.
2. Create a snapshot of a knot Integer.

Save specific folders

For the backup of specific directories:

1. Inform him username and password according to on information specific to your device.
2. Check Backup your data.
3. Check Backup specific folders
4. Inform the absolute path of folders to be saved in the field Folders to backup ; it is possible to specify several folders by separating each path by a comma, e.g.: /root/admin/, /home/user1/, /jelastic/containers/ (in this example, 3 folders were specified)...
   ‍

Then we have to define the frequency backups (read below).

Save an Integer Node

For the backup of an integer node:

1. Inform your Swift device's username and password on Swiss Backup.
2. Check Backup your data.
3. Check Backup all files to save the entire file system of a node; some files are automatically excluded:
   • folders /dev,/proc, /sys, /run
   • file systems not mounted as part of the root partition, including virtual file systems
     

Then we have to define the frequency backups.

Set frequency and retention policy for backups

Two options are available to perform the backup:

1. daily (at 8 p.m. UTC)
2. every hour (at the beginning of the hour, e.g. at 1 p.m., 2 p.m., etc.)

You can set the shelf life of your backups in years, months, days and hours. To keep your backups indefinitely, simply set the settings to 0.

For example, if you perform backups every hour and set a retention policy at 1 year, 2 months, 4 days, 2 hours, this means that each backup will be available for a period of 1 year, 2 months, 4 days, 2 hours (=10322 backups). Note that the removal of backups is done every Sunday at 10:30 pm (UTC).

Restore backups

Restore data from a node

1. Log in to Jelastic dashboard from your server.
2. Once the extension and password username of your Swift device has been added to Swiss Backup, check Restore your data.
3. Select the node that contains the backup to restore:
   
4. Select the backup to restore and the restore folder.
5. Click on the button Restore:
   

Restore snapshot-specific folders (CLI)

Each backup corresponds to a unique ID. You can include and exclude files from your snapshots when restoring. To see your snapshots:

1. . /home/.config/swissbackup/openrc.sh
2. restic snapshots
   
3. Use --exclude and --include to restrict restoration to a subset of files in the snapshot. P.ex. to restore a single file: restore 79766175 --target /tmp/restore-work --include /work/foo

There are variants insensitive to the cassation of --exclude and --include called --iexclude and --iinclude These options behave in the same way but ignore the breakage of paths.

Change the configuration of the backup

To this end:

1. Log in to Jelastic dashboard from your server.
2. Once the extension and password username of your Swift device has been added to Swiss Backup, change the configuration as desired.

The backup calendar is set by a cronjob and backups are performed using the restic tool.

To manually change backup planning (CLI), as root user, execute the command crontab -l to display current schedules:

• the line containing retention-all.sh corresponds to the backup task
• the line containing purge.sh corresponds to the backup retention task

Example:

Edit the schedule using the command crontab -e.

You can change the line composed of the script retention-all.sh or retention.sh, these scripts correspond to the launch of your backups. Be careful: crons have been designed not to cause problems between backups and multiple deletions. Pay attention to the time required for backups and deletions...

• Learn more about cronjobs: crontab.guru
• Learn more about restic: restic.net

Manually Delete Backups (CLI)

To this end:

1. Source the configuration file:
   . /home/.config/swissbackup/openrc.sh
2. Display the available backups:
   restic snapshots
3. Remove the desired backup:
   restic forget IdBackup --prune
4. Remove all backups from a file except one:
   restic forget --tag folders --keep-last 1 --prune

Delete backup planning

This button allows you to delete the planning of your backup:

 

Uninstall the Swiss Backup extension

It is necessary to delete the backup planning (see above) before you can remove the Swiss Backup extension:

This guide details the offer of Cloud Server Infomaniak which allows you to create multiple hostings (of "FTP spaces" for which you create your FTP/SSH accounts) on which you add sites (of "Apache vhosts" for the indicated domain), and the offer VPS Infomaniak for a different use.

Clearing the boundaries of the mutualized

With a managed Cloud Server, you distribute your sites to your accommodation as you wish. You can set them by indicating the root directory as well as certain information such as the memory_limit and max_execution_time beyond the limits imposed by an environment that would be mutualised.

Web tools are available such as cronjobs, Site Creator, WordPress (which allows the installation and then the use of the WordPress tool in all simplicity) or access logs and errors (logs). It is quite possible to add a specific Apache module or toinstall a cache system.

Cloud server or VPS?

Managed (Cloud Server)

Infomaniak manages the software part of servers under FastCGI and PHP-FPM without you being able to freely configure the server (no custom installation e.g.). Only specific programs can be installed.

Unmanaged (VPS)

Infomaniak handles hardware and installs the version of Linux or Windows selected at the order. No intervention at the software level. The Server is under "your responsibility". You can restart the server via the Infomaniak Manager and a system of snapshot is available (excluding VPS Lite).

If you hesitate to take a Server and you are planning a large video content, you can pair a shared hosting with a space VOD This solves the problems of overload on a site as it allows you to dissociate audiovisual content from your shared hosting and thus have a video storage space that easily supports large-scale loads. You will also have at your disposal detailed statistics regarding the viewing of your videos.

Tossing from one to the other...

To migrate a Cloud Server to a VPS, or vice versa, there is no "turnkey" solution. For this type of migration, you have to terminate the product that is no longer desired and then order the product you need instead. Infomaniak reimburses any purchase of a new server on request if the cancellation takes place less than 30 days after the order.