NAS B&R docs

source/adminguide/backup_and_recovery.rst

@@ -28,13 +28,17 @@ The following providers are currently supported:
 
 - VMware with Veeam Backup and Recovery
 - KVM with DELL EMC Networker
+- KVM with NAS B&R Plugin (4.20 onwards)
 
 See the Veeam Backup and Recovery plugin documentation for plugin specific information.
 :ref:`Veeam Backup and Recovery Plugin`
 
 See the DELL EMC Networker Backup and Recovery plugin documentation for plugin specific information.
 :ref:`DELL EMC Networker Backup and Recovery Plugin`
 
+See the Veeam Backup and Recovery plugin documentation for plugin specific information.
+:ref:`NAS Backup and Recovery Plugin`
+
 
 Backup and Recovery Concepts
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@@ -73,7 +77,7 @@ the Global Settings area of the CloudStack UI.
 Configuration                     Description
 ================================= ========================
 backup.framework.enabled          Setting to enable or disable the feature. Default: false.
-backup.framework.provider.plugin  The backup provider (plugin) name. For example: 'dummy', 'veeam' and 'networker'. This is a zone specific setting. Default: dummy.
+backup.framework.provider.plugin  The backup provider (plugin) name. For example: 'dummy', 'veeam', 'networker' and 'nas'. This is a zone specific setting. Default: dummy.
 backup.framework.sync.interval    Background sync task internal in seconds that performs metrics/usage stats collection, backup reconciliation and backup scheduling. Default: 300.
 ================================= ========================
 

source/adminguide/nas_plugin.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
+.. Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+   or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+   distributed with this work for additional information#
+   regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+   to you 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.
+
+.. _NAS Backup and Recovery Plugin:
+
+NAS Backup and Recovery Plugin
+==============================
+
+About the NAS Backup and Recovery Plugin
+----------------------------------------
+
+The NAS Backup and Recovery Plugin provider simple B&R operations for KVM
+instances to any shared storage (NAS). It is based on `libvirt push backup mode
+<https://libvirt.org/kbase/live_full_disk_backup.html>`_
+to take full instance backups (qcow2) and requires libvirt-7.2.0 and QEMU-4.2,
+or high versions on the KVM hosts.
+
+The NAS B&R plugin requires admin to first add backup repositories which are
+network-attached storage (shared storage) such as NFS, CephFS and CIFS/Samba.
+This plugin currently supports NFS, CephFS and CIFS (Samba) based NAS storage
+pools. When initiating B&R operations on KVM instance, the assigned backup
+offering is used to infer backup repository (NAS) details which are then used to
+mount them temporarily on the KVM host to peform instance backup/restore disks
+operations. This also requires that admin installs NAS-storage specific
+utilities on the KVM hosts such as nfs-utils/nfs-common, ceph-common, cifs-utils
+etc.
+
+Consider the following mount, typically performed on a KVM/Linux host to mount storage:
+
+    mount -t <nas/storage type> -o <mount options> <address> <mount point>
+
+For example, for CephFS, this can be:
+
+    mount -t ceph 10.10.1.10,10.10.1.11,10.10.1.12:/ /target -o name=user,secret=xyz,defaults
+
+The backup repository is designed to accept these parameters (type, address and
+mount options) as configurations to be used to execute mount operations such as
+illustrated above.
+
+With 'nas' B&R plugin enabled, after a backup repositories are added, root
+admins can create new backup offerings by selecting the zone and the backup
+repository. These backup offerings are then assigned and used with KVM instances
+to perform support B&R actions and operations.
+
+Support Information and Limitation
+----------------------------------
+
+The NAS B&R plugin has been tested with EL8, EL9, Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04. Older
+KVM distros such as EL7 etc may not work due to libvirt/qemu version
+requirements. Other supported KVM-distros are not tested but may work such as
+Ubuntu 20.04, OpenSUSE 15, Debian 11 and Debian 12.
+
+Instance backups are full disk backups and limited by libvirt's ability to
+initiate and handle backup. All such backups are exported and stored in qcow2
+format. Due to this, restore operation are supported for volumes of type qcow2
+and limited to NFS and local storage based primary storage pools.
+
+For running instances, their disks (of any format/storage type) are backed up by
+libvirtd's push based efficient-backup mechanism exported as qcow2 disks on the
+backup repository.
+
+For stopped instances, `qemu-img` is used to convert and export full-disk backup
+in qcow2 format to the backup repository.
+
+For restore operations, the KVM instance must be stopped in CloudStack.
+Currently, only volume(s) restoration is supported only to NFS and local storage
+based primary storage pools, and restored volumes are fully baked disks (i.e.
+not using any backing template file).