Set up the SnapTool external snapshots manager

The SnapTool is an external snapshots manager that enables scheduled snapshots and automatic operations

WEKA provides an external snapshots manager named SnapTool, enabling scheduled snapshots for your WEKA cluster.

The SnapTool provides the following features:

Schedule snapshots monthly, daily, or at multiple (minute granularity) intervals during a daily schedule.
Set the number of snapshot copies to retain per schedule.
Delete expired snapshots automatically.
Upload snapshots to an object store automatically.
Upload and delete in the background.
Access a Web Status GUI to view the snapshot schedules, upload and download queue, , locator IDs for successfully uploaded snapshots, and logs. The default URL is http://<snaptool server hostname/IP>:8090.

The SnapTool runs on any Linux-based management server (or VM). All communication with the WEKA cluster is done by an IP connection only to a WEKA host using the WEKA REST API.

The SnapTool package can be installed with a systemd service or Docker container. In both options, you need to edit the configuration in the snaptool.yml file before running the installation.

Before you begin

If a previous SnapTool version exists in the management server, make a copy of your existing snaptool.yml file.

If the snaptool.yml file is from releases before 1.0.0, it is incompatible with 1.0.0 and above. You need to modify the file to use the new syntax.

Setting up a dedicated management server (or VM) for the installation is recommended.

Server minimum requirements

2 cores
8 GB RAM
5 GB /opt/ partition (for the SnapTool installation)
Network access to the WEKA cluster
To use Docker, the following must be installed on the dedicated management server:
- docker-ce
- docker-compose or docker-compose-plugin depending on the existing operating system.
For the Docker installation instructions, see the Docker website.

Authentication token requirement

To enable communication between the management server and the WEKA cluster, the security token is required in the auth-token.json file.

Create the directory ~/.weka in the management server.

Generate the auth-token.json file and save it in the ~/.weka directory. See the Obtain authentication tokens topic.

It is highly recommended to create a local user with ReadOnly privilege just for the Weka-mon package and use it for cluster communications. See the Create local users topic.

Option 1: Install the SnapTool package with the systemd service

Download the latest snaptool.tar file from https://github.com/weka/snaptool/releases and extract it to the management server. Example: wget https://github.com/weka/snaptool/releases/snaptool.tar tar xvf snaptool.tar
Edit the snaptool.yml configuration file (default location: /opt/weka/snaptool). See Edit the configuration in snaptool.yml. This is a mandatory step before running the installer. Otherwise, the installation fails.
Install the unit file into the systemd and start the service. Run the following command: ./install.shThe installer validates the connection to the cluster by the hosts specified in the snaptool.yml file.

If the systemd service is already running locally, the installer stops it and preserves the existing snaptool.yml file before restarting it.

Option 2: Install the SnapTool package in Docker

The snaptool container runs similarly to other WEKA Docker containers.

Download the docker image from the docker hub. Run the following command: docker pull wekasolutions/snaptool:latest
Download the following files from GitHub https://github.com/weka/snaptool/releases to a dedicated directory in the management server:
- snaptool.yml
- docker_run.sh
Edit the snaptool.yml configuration file (default location: /opt/weka/snaptool). See Edit the configuration in snaptool.yml. This is a mandatory step before running the installer. Otherwise, the installation fails.
Edit the time_zone field in the docker_run.sh file.
Run the following command: ./docker_run.sh
Verify that the SnapTool container is running using the following command: docker ps

Example:

oot@weka142:~# docker ps
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                   COMMAND                 CREATED      STATUS     PORTS   NAMES
718486e75b38   wekasolutions/snaptool  "/wekabin/snaptool -…"  30 hours ago Up 5 hours         weka_snaptool

A logs directory is created in the current working directory for logs and snapshot journaling files.

Edit the configuration in the snaptool.yml file

The SnapTool configuration is defined in the snaptool.yml file.

Go to the snaptool directory and open the snaptool.yml file.
In the cluster section under the hosts list, replace the hostnames with the actual hostnames/IP addresses of the Weka containers (up to three would be sufficient).

Syntax:

cluster:
    auth_token_file: auth-token.json
    hosts: vweka01,vweka02,vweka03

Example:

cluster:
    auth_token_file: auth-token.json
    hosts: hostname1,hostname2,hostname3

3. In the snaptool section, the default network port to access the Web Status GUI is 8090. If required, you can modify it. To disable the Web Status GUI, set the port to 0.

Syntax:

snaptool:
    port: 8090

4. In the filesystems section, specify the filesystems and their schedule names to run snapshots.

Syntax:

<fs_name1>:  <schedule1>,<schedule2>...
<fs_name2>:  <schedule1>,<schedule2>...

Example:

filesystems:
   fs01: default
   fs02: Weekdays-6pm, Weekends-noon

5. Optional. Customize the snapshot schedules.

Adhere to the following rules when customizing the schedules:

Schedules within a schedules group, such as default, cannot be assigned separately from the group. Use only the group name.
To set a specific schedule within a schedules group, such as monthly and weekly, not to run on a filesystem, remove it from the filesystem's schedule list.
When deleting snapshots automatically, based on the retain: value, snapshots for a schedule and filesystem are sorted by the creation time. The oldest snapshots are deleted until the number of snapshots to retain (the value specified in the retain: section) remains.
The SnapTool checks if the snaptool.yml file has changed about every minute and reloads it if it is changed. Snapshot schedules are then recalculated before creating new snapshots.

For details about the syntax of the schedules section, see the comments in the snaptool.yml file.

Example:

schedules:
    default:
        monthly:
            every: month
            retain: 6
            # day: 1   (this is the default)
            # at: 0000 (this is the default)
        weekly:
            every: Sunday
            retain: 8
            # at: 0000 (this is the default)
        daily:
            every: Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu,Fri,Sat
            retain: 14
            # at: 0000 (this is the default)
        hourly:
            every: Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu,Fri
            retain: 10
            interval: 60
            at: 9:00am
            until: 5pm
    Weekdays-6pm:
        every: Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu,Fri
        at: 6pm
        retain: 4
    Weekends-noon:
        every: Sat,Sun
        at: 1200
        retain: 4

Snapshot naming conventions

The format of the snapshot names is <schedulename>.YYMMDDHHMM, with the access point @GMT-YYYY.MM.DD-HH.MM.SS.

Example: For a snapshot name Weekends-noon.2103101200 and access point @GMT-2021.03.10-12.00.00, the snapshot name is in the local timezone, the access point is in GMT, and the server timezone is GMT.

The name for a group of snapshots is<schedulegroupname>_<schedulename>.YYMMDDHHMM. The length of the full name before the '.' is a maximum of 18 characters.

Example: The default schedule group with an hourly schedule can be named default_hourly.YYMMDDHHMM.

Note: The SnapTool distinguishes between user-created snapshots and scheduled snapshots only by their name.

When creating user-created snapshots, avoid name collisions with scheduled snapshot names. The SnapTool might automatically select the user-created snapshots for deletion if the same naming format is used.

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