NAME

ec2-consistent-snapshot - Create EBS snapshots on EC2 w/consistent filesystem/db

SUPPORT STATUS

This project is no longer maintained. It is unclear if such a tool is really necessary on EC2/EBS.

1. Modern filesystems and databases have built-in crash recovery, minimizing the importance of "consistent" snapshots.

2. If creating consistent snapshots were a real issue, then surely Amazon would be recommending it in official documentation and would be providing tools to enable it.

3. This project was written in Perl, which has no SDK officially supported by Amazon.

If you are still interested in creating consistent snapshots of file systems using a supported project, you can check out ec2-consistent-snapshot.sh which is inspired by this project and written by one of the former maintainers. It has fewer features and options, but uses the officially supported AWS CLI.

You are also welcome to fork this project and continue working on it under the terms of the "LICENSE".

SYNOPSIS

ec2-consistent-snapshot [opts] VOLUMEID...

OPTIONS

-h --help

Print help and exit.
-d --debug

Debug mode.
-q --quiet

Quiet mode.
-n --noaction

Dry run. Just say what you would have done, don't do it.
--aws-access-key-id KEY
--aws-secret-access-key SECRET

Amazon AWS access key and secret access key. Defaults to environment variables or .awssecret file contents described below.
--aws-access-key-id-file KEYFILE
--aws-secret-access-key-file SECRETFILE

Files containing Amazon AWS access key and secret access key. Defaults to environment variables or .awssecret file contents described below.
--aws-credentials-file CREDENTIALSFILE

File containing both the Amazon AWS access key and secret access key on seprate lines and in that order. Defaults to contents of $AWS_CREDENTIALS environment variable or the value $HOME/.awssecret
--use-iam-role

The instance is part of an IAM role that that has permission to create snapshots so there is no need to specify access key or secret. See "IAM ROLES" section for an example Managed Policy with the required permissions.
--region REGION

Specify a different EC2 region like "eu-west-1". Defaults to "us-east-1".
--description DESCRIPTION

Specify a description string for the EBS snapshot. Defaults to the name of the program.

You may specify this option multiple times if you need to customize descriptions of multiple volumes snapshots. If specified multiple times descriptions count has to match volumes count and they will be applied on the same order.
--tag "KEY=VALUE;KEY2=VALUE2"

If the --tag option is given once, the provided tags will be applied to all created snapshots. Tag keys and values must be separated by '='. Multiple tags must be separated by ';'.

If the --tag option is provided more than once, the tags for each use of --tag will apply to each volume in the order that the volumes are provided.

To check how your tags will be applied, you can use the --noaction flag before actually running a snapshot.
--freeze-filesystem MOUNTPOINT
--xfs-filesystem MOUNTPOINT [OBSOLESCENT form of the same option]

Indicates that the filesystem at the specified mount point should be flushed and frozen during the snapshot. Requires the xfs_freeze or fsfreeze program. Note that xfs_freeze is equivalent to fsfreeze and works on any filesystems that support freezing, provided the kernel you are using supports it. (Linux Ext3/4, ReiserFS, JFS, XFS.) fsfreeze comes with newer versions of util-linux.

You may specify this option multiple times if you need to freeze multiple filesystems on the the EBS volume(s).

If no EBS volume ids are specified as command arguments, the specified mountpoints will be used along with mount points passed to --no-freeze-filesystem to determine the volume ids.
--no-freeze-filesystem MOUNTPOINT

Indicates that the filesystem at the specified mount point should be used for volume id discovery if no volume ids are specified as arguments, but that it should not be frozen.

You may specify this options multiple times if you need to discover EBS volumes for multiple filesystems.
--mongo

Indicates that the volume contains data files for a running Mongo database, which will be flushed and locked during the snapshot.
--mongo-host HOST

Define host used with the `--mongo` option.

Defaults to 'localhost'.
--mongo-port PORT

Define MongoDB port used with the `--mongo` option.

Defaults to 27017
--mongo-username USER

Define MongoDB username used with the `--mongo` option.

Defaults to `undef`. Required only if authentication is required.
--mongo-password PASS

Define MongoDB password used with the `--mongo` option.

Defaults to `undef`. Required only if authentication is required.
--mongo-stop

Indicates that the volume contains data files for a running Mongo instance. The instance is shutdown before the snapshot is initiated and restarted afterwards. [EXPERIMENTAL]

Uses the `--mongo-init` option to stop and start the database ignores all other Mongo-related options
--mongo-init

The command used to stop and start mongo.

Defaults to `/etc/init.d/mongod`.

Used only if `--mongo-stop` is used. The `--mongo-init` command is passed the 'stop' and 'start' options during to the stop/start process.
--mysql

Indicates that the volume contains data files for a running MySQL database, which will be flushed and locked during the snapshot.

To connect, we will first look in `--mysql-defaults-file`, if provided. Otherwise, the values of `--mysql-host`, `--mysql-socket`, `--mysql-username` and `--mysql-password` will be used to build the connection string.
--mysql-defaults-file FILE

MySQL defaults file, containing host, username and password, this option will ignore the --mysql-host, --mysql-username, --mysql-password parameters
--mysql-host HOST
--mysql-socket PATH
--mysql-username USER
--mysql-password PASS

MySQL host, socket path, username, and password used to flush logs and lock tables. User must have appropriate permissions. Defaults to $HOME/.my.cnf file contents.
--mysql-master-status-file FILE

Store the MASTER STATUS output in a file on the snapshot. It will be removed after the EBS snapshot is taken. This option will be ignored with --mysql-stop
--mysql-stop

Indicates that the volume contains data files for a running MySQL database. The database is shutdown using `/usr/bin/mysqladmin stop` before the snapshot is initiated and restarted afterwards using `/etc/init.d/mysql start`. Suitable for running as root when a few seconds of downtime are acceptable. [EXPERIMENTAL]
--percona

Indicates that the volume contains data files for a running Percona/MySQL database, which will be locked using Percona's unique backup locking commands. Note: this sets '--mysql' automatically.
--snapshot-timeout SECONDS

How many seconds to wait for the snapshot-create to return. Defaults to 10.0
--lock-timeout SECONDS

How many seconds to wait for a database lock. Defaults to 0.5. Making this too large can force other processes to wait while this process waits for a lock. Better to make it small and try lots of times.
--lock-tries COUNT

How many times to try to get a database lock before failing. Defaults to 60.
--lock-sleep SECONDS

How many seconds to sleep between database lock tries. Defaults to 5.0.
--pre-freeze-command COMMAND

Command to run after MySQL stop/lock and before filesystem freeze.
--post-thaw-command COMMAND

Command to run immediately after filesystem unfreeze and before MySQL start/unlock.

ARGUMENTS

VOLUMEID

EBS volume id(s) for which a snapshot is to be created.

DESCRIPTION

This program creates an EBS snapshot for an Amazon EC2 EBS volume. To help ensure consistent data in the snapshot, it tries to flush and freeze the filesystem(s) first as well as flushing and locking the database, if applicable.

Filesystems can be frozen during the snapshot. Prior to Linux kernel 2.6.29, XFS must be used for freezing support. While frozen, a filesystem will be consistent on disk and all writes will block.

There are a number of timeouts to reduce the risk of interfering with the normal database operation while improving the chances of getting a consistent snapshot.

If you have multiple EBS volumes in a RAID configuration, you can specify all of the volume ids on the command line and it will create snapshots for each while the filesystem and database are locked. Note that it is your responsibility to keep track of the resulting snapshot ids and to figure out how to put these back together when you need to restore the RAID setup.

If you have multiple EBS volumes which are hosting different file systems, it might be better to simply run the command once for each volume id.

EXAMPLES

Snapshot a volume with a frozen filesystem under /vol containing a MySQL database:

ec2-consistent-snapshot --mysql --freeze-filesystem /vol vol-VOLUMEID

Snapshot a volume with a frozen filesystem under /data containing a Mongo database:

ec2-consistent-snapshot --mongo --freeze-filesystem /data vol-VOLUMEID

Snapshot a volume mounted with a frozen filesystem on /var/local but with no MySQL database:

ec2-consistent-snapshot --freeze-filesystem /var/local vol-VOLUMEID

Snapshot four European volumes in a RAID configuration with MySQL, saving the snapshots with a description marking the current time:

ec2-consistent-snapshot                                      \
  --mysql                                                    \
  --freeze-filesystem /vol                                   \
  --region eu-west-1                                         \
  --description "RAID snapshot $(date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')" \
  vol-VOL1 vol-VOL2 vol-VOL3 vol-VOL4

Snapshot four us-east-1 volumes in a RAID configuration with Mongo, saving the snapshots with a description marking the current time:

ec2-consistent-snapshot                                      \
  --mongo                                                    \
  --freeze-filesystem /data                                  \
  --region us-east-1                                         \
  --description "RAID snapshot $(date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')" \
  vol-VOL1 vol-VOL2 vol-VOL3 vol-VOL4

Snapshot two volumes with customized descriptions:

ec2-consistent-snapshot                                      \
  --description "Description 1st Volume"                     \
  --description "Description 2nd Volume"                     \
  vol-VOL1 vol-VOL2

Snapshot a volume without specifying a volume id (requires ec2:DescribeInstances permission):

ec2-consistent-snapshot --freeze-filesystem /vol

ENVIRONMENT

$AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID

Default value for access key. Can be overridden by command line options.
$AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY

Default value for secret access key. Can be overridden by command line options.
$AWS_CREDENTIALS

Default value for filename containing both access key and secret access key on separate lines and in that order. Can be overriden by the --aws-credentials command line option.

FILES

$HOME/.my.cnf

Default values for MySQL user and password are sought here in the standard format.
$HOME/.awssecret

Default values for access key and secret access keys are sought here. Can be overridden by environment variables and command line options.

INSTALLATION

On most Ubuntu releases, the ec2-consistent-snapshot package can be installed directly from the Alestic.com PPA using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alestic
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ec2-consistent-snapshot

This program may also require the installation of the Net::Amazon::EC2 Perl package from CPAN. On Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid and higher, this should happen automatically by the dependency on the libnet-amazon-ec2-perl package.

On some earlier releases of Ubuntu you can install the required package with the following command:

sudo PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT=1 cpan Net::Amazon::EC2

On Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy, use the following commands instead:

code=$(lsb_release -cs)
echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/alestic/ppa/ubuntu $code main"|
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/alestic-ppa.list
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys BE09C571
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ec2-consistent-snapshot build-essential
sudo cpan Net::Amazon::EC2

The default values can be accepted for most of the prompts, though it is necessary to select a CPAN mirror on Hardy.

IAM ROLES

When authenticating using a IAM Role your role must have the appropriate permissions. You can create a single IAM Managed Policy that allows the necessary permissions and attach the managed policy to each IAM role you would like to allow to create EC2 snapshots.

The following policy allows both creating the snapshots as the read-only DescribeInstances permission which is required if you want to snapshot a volume without specifying the volume ID.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "1",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "ec2:CreateSnapshot",
                "ec2:CreateTags",
                "ec2:DescribeInstances"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}

If you get an "unauthorized" error when using the --use-iam-role option, you can use the --debug option to confirm whether it was the DescribeInstances or CreateSnapshot API call that failed.

You might also use IAM policies to allow automating deleting old snapshots through another tool. Using a separate policy is recommended for that. By putting the "delete" permission in the same policy, you would be allowing someone with access to one of your EC2 instances to delete the backups of the instance volumes. Instead, carefully restrict the delete permission.

VOLUME DISCOVERY

If no EBS volume ids are passed as arguments to ec2-consistent-snapshot, it will attempt to discover the volume ids based on the mount points passed to --no-freeze-filesystem and --freeze-filesystem.

In order to determine the volume ids, ec2-consistent-snapshot first makes a call to the EC2 instance metadata service to determine the instance's id. Next, it makes a call to the DescribeInstances EC2 api to get the list of volumes attached to the instance. It then compares the device names for each attachment with a list of device names determined using mountpoint(1) and sysfs.

CAVEATS

Freezing the root filesystem is not recommended. Be sure to test each filesystem you use it on before putting this into production, in exactly the way you would run it in production (e.g., inside cron if that's how you invoke it).

ec2-consistent-snapshot can hang if its output is directed at a filesystem that is being frozen, leading to a dead machine.

EBS snapshots are a critical part of protecting your valuable data. This program or the environment in which it is run may contain defects that cause snapshots to not be created. Please test and check to make sure that snapshots are getting created for the volumes as you intend.

EBS snapshots cost money to create and to store in your AWS account. Be aware of and monitor your expenses.

You are responsible for what happens in your EC2 account. This software is intended, but not guaranteed, to help in that effort.

This program tries hard to figure out some values are for the AWS key and AWS secret access key. In fact, it tries too hard. This results in possibly using some credentials it finds that are not the correct ones you wish to use, especially if you are operating in an environment where multiple sets of credentials are in use.

BUGS

Please report bugs at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ec2-consistent-snapshot

CREDITS

Thanks to the following for performing tests on early versions, providing feature development, feedback, bug reports, and patches:

David Erickson
Steve Caldwell
Gryp
Ken Huang
Jefferson Noxon
Bobb Crosbie
Craig Tracey
Diego Salvi
Christian Marquardt
Todd Roman
Ben Tucker
David Rogeres
Kevin Lewis
Eric Lubow
Seth de l'Isle
Peter Waller
yalamber
Daniel Beardsley
dileep-p
theonlypippo
Tobias Lindgren
nbfowler
Mark Stosberg
Tim McEwan

AUTHOR/MAINTAINER

Eric Hammond <https://github.com/ehammond> Mark Stosberg <https://github.com/markstos>

LICENSE

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

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