Velero: Kubernetes Backup and Disaster Recovery Guide

What Is Velero?

Velero backs up Kubernetes resources and persistent volumes, enabling disaster recovery, cluster migration, and data protection. 9K+ GitHub stars.

What Gets Backed Up

• All Kubernetes resources (Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps, Secrets, CRDs)
• Persistent Volume data (via CSI snapshots or Restic/Kopia)
• Namespace-level or cluster-level backups
• Label-selected subsets

Installation

velero install \
  --provider aws \
  --plugins velero/velero-plugin-for-aws:v1.10.0 \
  --bucket velero-backups \
  --backup-location-config region=eu-west-1 \
  --snapshot-location-config region=eu-west-1 \
  --secret-file ./credentials-velero \
  --use-node-agent \
  --default-volumes-to-fs-backup

Scheduled Backups

apiVersion: velero.io/v1
kind: Schedule
metadata:
  name: daily-production
  namespace: velero
spec:
  schedule: "0 2 * * *"  # Daily at 2 AM
  template:
    includedNamespaces:
      - production
      - payments
      - database
    storageLocation: default
    volumeSnapshotLocations:
      - default
    ttl: 720h  # Retain 30 days
    defaultVolumesToFsBackup: true
---
apiVersion: velero.io/v1
kind: Schedule
metadata:
  name: hourly-critical
spec:
  schedule: "0 * * * *"  # Hourly
  template:
    includedNamespaces:
      - database
    labelSelector:
      matchLabels:
        backup: critical
    ttl: 168h  # Retain 7 days

Restore

# List available backups
velero backup get

# Restore entire namespace
velero restore create --from-backup daily-production-20260605020000

# Restore specific resources only
velero restore create --from-backup daily-production-20260605020000 \
  --include-resources deployments,services,configmaps \
  --include-namespaces payments

# Restore to different namespace (migration)
velero restore create --from-backup daily-production-20260605020000 \
  --namespace-mappings production:staging

Cross-Cluster Migration

# Source cluster: create backup
velero backup create migration-backup --include-namespaces app1,app2

# Destination cluster: restore (same object storage configured)
velero restore create --from-backup migration-backup

Works across cloud providers — back up from EKS, restore to GKE.

Backup Strategies

Disaster Recovery Runbook

# 1. Verify backup health
velero backup describe daily-production-latest --details

# 2. If cluster is lost, deploy new cluster

# 3. Install Velero (same object storage config)
velero install --provider aws --bucket velero-backups ...

# 4. Verify backups are visible
velero backup get

# 5. Restore
velero restore create disaster-recovery --from-backup daily-production-latest

# 6. Verify
kubectl get pods -A
velero restore describe disaster-recovery --details

Testing Restores (Critical!)

# CronJob to test restore weekly
apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: velero-restore-test
spec:
  schedule: "0 4 * * 0"  # Sunday 4 AM
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          containers:
            - name: test
              image: bitnami/kubectl
              command:
                - /bin/sh
                - -c
                - |
                  velero restore create test-$(date +%s) \
                    --from-backup daily-production-latest \
                    --namespace-mappings production:restore-test
                  sleep 300
                  kubectl get pods -n restore-test
                  kubectl delete namespace restore-test

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