Configuration file reference

• 1: [CloudStorage]
• 2: [database]
• 3: [mapping]
• 4: [misc]
• 5: [NodeMapping]
• 6: [transmission]
• 7: Password configuration file

1 - [CloudStorage]

Sets options for storing backup data on in a supported cloud storage location.

Config has conflicting sections (Mapping, CloudStorage), specify only one of them.

cloud_storage_backup_file_system_path

Specifies the host and path that you are using to handle file locking during the backup process. vbr must be able to create a passwordless ssh connection to the location that you specify here.

To use a local NFS file system, specify a value of:

cloud_storage_backup_file_system_path = []:path

To use a host, specify a value of:

cloud_storage_backup_file_system_path = [host-name]:path

cloud_storage_backup_path

Specifies the backup location. For S3-compatible or cloud locations, provide the bucket name and backup path. For HDFS locations, provide the appropriate protocol and backup path.

When you back up to cloud storage, all nodes back up to same cloud storage bucket. You must create the backup location in the cloud storage before performing a backup. The following example specifies the backup path for S3 storage:

cloud_storage_backup_path = s3://backup-bucket/database-backup-path/

When you back up to an HDFS location, use the swebhdfs protocol if you use wire encryption. Use the webhdfs protocol if you do not use wire encryption. The following example uses encryption:

cloud_storage_backup_path = swebhdfs://backup-nameservice/database-backup-path/

cloud_storage_ca_bundle

Specifies the path to an SSL server certificate bundle.

Note

The key (*pem) file must be on the same path on all nodes of the database cluster.

For example:

cloud_storage_ca_bundle = /home/user/ssl-folder/ca-bundle

cloud_storage_concurrency_backup

The maximum number of concurrent backup threads for backup to cloud storage. For very large data volumes (greater than 10TB), you might need to reduce this value to avoid vbr failures.

Default: 10

cloud_storage_concurrency_delete

The maximum number of concurrent delete threads for deleting files from cloud storage. If the vbr configuration file contains a [CloudStorage] section, this value is set to 10 by default.

Default: 10

cloud_storage_concurrency_restore

The maximum number of concurrent restore threads for restoring from cloud storage. For very large data volumes (>10TB), you might need to reduce this value to avoid vbr failures.

Default: 10

cloud_storage_encrypt_at_rest

S3 storage only. To enable at-rest encryption of your backups to S3, specify a value of sse. For more information, see Encrypting Backups on Amazon S3.

This value takes the following form:

cloud_storage_encrypt_at_rest = sse

cloud_storage_encrypt_transport

Boolean, if set to true uses SSL encryption to encrypt data moving between your Vertica cluster and your cloud storage instance.

You must set this parameter to true if backing up or restoring from:

• Amazon EC2 cluster

• Google Cloud Storage (GCS)

• Eon Mode on-premises database with communal storage on HDFS, to use wire encryption.

Default: true

cloud_storage_sse_kms_key_id

S3 storage only. If you use Amazon Key Management Security, use this parameter to provide your key ID. If you enable encryption and do not include this parameter, vbr uses SSE-S3 encryption.

This value takes the following form:

cloud_storage_sse_kms_key_id = key-id

2 - [database]

Sets options for accessing the database.

dbName

Name of the database to back up. If you do not supply a database name, vbr selects the current database to back up.

OpenText recommends that you provide a database name.

dbPromptForPassword

Boolean, specifies whether vbr prompts for a password. If set to false (no prompt at runtime), then the dbPassword parameter in the password configuration file must provide the password; otherwise, vbr prompts for one at runtime.

As a best practice, set dbPromptForPassword to false if dbUseLocalConnection is set to true.

Default: true

dbUser

Identifies the Vertica user that performs vbr operations on the database operations. In the case of replicate tasks, this user is the source database user. You must be logged on as the database administrator to back up the database. The user password can be stored in the dbPassword parameter of the password configuration file; otherwise, vbr prompts for one at runtime.

Default: Current user name

dbUseLocalConnection

Boolean, specifies whether vbr accesses the target database over a local connection with the user's Vertica password. If dbUseLocalConnection is enabled, vbr can operate on a local database without the user password being set in the vbr configuration. vbr ignores the passwordFile parameter and any settings in the password configuration file, including dbPassword.

If dbUseLocalConnection is enabled, then an authentication method must be granted to vbr users—typically a dbadmin—where method type is set to trust, and access is set to local:

=> CREATE AUTHENTICATION h1 method 'trust' local;
=> GRANT AUTHENTICATION h1 to dbadmin;

Default: false

Set destination database parameters only if replicating objects on alternate clusters:

dest_dbName

Name of the destination database.

dest_dbPromptForPassword

Boolean, controls whether vbr prompts for the destination database password. If set to false (no prompt at runtime), then dest_dbPassword parameter in the password configuration file must provide the password; otherwise, vbr prompts for one at runtime.

dest_dbUser

Vertica user name in the destination database to use for loading replicated data. This user must have superuser privileges.

3 - [mapping]

vbr configuration files have one [Mapping] section that specifies all database nodes that are included in a backup. It also includes the backup host and directory of each node. If objects are replicated to an alternative database, the [Mapping] section maps the target database nodes to the source database backup locations.

If you edit an existing configuration file to add a Mapping in the current style, the new section must combine information from all existing mappings.

Unlike other configuration file sections, the [Mapping] section does not use named parameters. Instead, it uses entries of the following format:

dbNode = backupHost:backupDir

The following table describes these three elements.

dbNode

Name of the database node as recognized by Vertica. This value is not the node's host name; rather, it is the name Vertica uses internally to identify the node, usually in the form of:

v_dbname_node000int

To find database node names in your cluster, query the node_name column of the NODES system table.

backupHost

The target host name or IP address on which to store this node's backup. The backupHost name is different from dbNode. The copycluster command uses this value to identify the target database node host name.

Important

Although supported, backups to an NFS host might perform poorly, particularly on networks shared with rsync operations.

backupDir

The full path to the directory on the backup host or node where the backup will be stored. The following requirements apply this directory:

• Already exists when you run vbr with the --task backup option

• Writable by the user account used to run vbr.

• Unique to the database you are backing up. Multiple databases cannot share the same backup directory.

• File system at this location supports fcntl lockf file locking.

For example:

[Mapping]
v_sec_node0001 = pri_bsrv01:/archive/backup
v_sec_node0002 = pri_bsrv02:/archive/backup
v_sec_node0003 = pri_bsrv03:/archive/backup

Mapping to the localhost

vbr does not support the special localhost name as a backup host. To back up a database node to its own disk, use empty square brackets for the hostname in the [Mapping] section of the configuration file.

[Mapping]
NodeName = []:/backup/path

Mapping to the same database

The following example shows a [Mapping] section that specifies a single node to back up: v_vmart_node0001. The node is assigned to backup host srv01 and backup directory /home/dbadmin/backups. Although a single-node cluster is backed up, and the backup host and the database node are the same system, they are specified differently.

Specify the backup host and directory using a colon (:) as a separator:

[Mapping]
v_vmart_node0001 = srv01:/home/dbadmin/backups

Mapping to an alternative database

To restore an alternative database, add mapping information as follows:

[Mapping]
targetNode = backupHost:backupDir

For example:

[Mapping]
v_sec_node0001 = pri_bsrv01:/archive/backup
v_sec_node0002 = pri_bsrv02:/archive/backup
v_sec_node0003 = pri_bsrv03:/archive/backup

4 - [misc]

This section collects basic settings, including the name and location of your backup. The section also indicates whether you are keeping more than a single backup file, as specified by the restorePointLimit parameter.

passwordFile

The path name of the password configuration file.

This parameter is ignored if dbUseLocalConnection is set to true.

restorePointLimit

Number of earlier backups to retain with the most recent backup. If set to 1 (the default), Vertica maintains two backups: the latest backup and the one before it.

Note

vbr saves multiple backups to the same location, which are shared through hard links. In such cases, the listbackup task displays the common backup prefix with unique time and date suffixes:

my_archive20111111_205841

Default: 1

snapshotName

Base name of the backup used in the directory tree structure that vbr creates for each node, containing up to 240 characters limited to the following:

• a–z

• A–Z

• 0–9

• Hyphen (-)

• Underscore (_)

Each iteration in this series (up to restorePointLimit) consists of snapshotName and the backup timestamp. Each series of backups should have a unique and descriptive snapshot name. Full and object-level backups cannot share names. For most vbr tasks, snapshotName serves as a useful identifier in diagnostics and system tables. For object restore and replication tasks, snapshotName is used to build schema names in coexist mode operations.

Default: snapshotName

tempDir

Specifies an absolute path to a temporary storage area on the cluster nodes. The tmp path must be the same on all database cluster nodes. vbr uses this directory as temporary storage for log files, lock files, and other bookkeeping information while it copies files from the source cluster node to the destination backup location. vbr also writes backup logs to this location.

Caution

Do not use the same location as your database's data or catalog directory. Unexpected files and directories in your data or catalog location can cause errors during database startup or restore.

The file system at this location must support fcntl lockf (POSIX) file locking.

Default: /tmp/vbr

drop_foreign_constraints

Boolean, if set to true, all foreign key constraints are unconditionally dropped during object-level restore. You can then restore database objects independent of their foreign key dependencies.

Important

You must set objectRestoreMode to coexist, or Vertica ignores this setting.

Default: false

enableFreeSpaceCheck

Boolean, if set to true (default) or omitted, vbr confirms that the specified backup locations contain sufficient free space to allow a successful backup. If a backup location has insufficient resources, vbr displays an error message and cancels the backup. If vbr cannot determine the amount of available space or number of nodes in the backup directory, it displays a warning and continues with the backup.

Default: true

excludeObjects

Identifies database objects and wildcards patterns to exclude from the set specified by includeObjects. Unicode characters are case-sensitive; others are not.

You can only use this parameter with includeObjects.

hadoop_conf_dir

Eon Mode on HDFS with high availability (HA) nodes only, the directory path containing the XML configuration files copied from Hadoop.

If the vbr operation includes more than one HA HDFS cluster, use a colon-separated list to provide the directory paths to the XML configuration files for each HA HDFS cluster. For example:

hadoop_conf_dir = path/to/xml-config-hahdfs1:path/to/xml-config-hahdfs2

This value must match the HadoopConfDir value set in the bootstrapping file created during installation.

includeObjects

Identifies database objects and wildcards patterns to include with a backup task. You can use this parameter together with excludeObjects. Unicode characters are case-sensitive; others are not.

Important

The includeObjects and objects parameters are mutually exclusive.

kerberos_keytab_file

Eon Mode on HDFS only, the location of the keytab file that contains credentials for the Vertica Kerberos principal.

This value must match the KerberosKeytabFile value set in the bootstrapping file created during installation.

kerberos_realm

Eon Mode on HDFS only, the realm portion of the Vertica Kerberos principal.

This value must match the KerberosRealm value set in the bootstrapping file created during installation.

kerberos_service_name

Eon Mode on HDFS only, the service name portion of the Vertica Kerberos principal.

This value must match the KerberosServiceName value set in the bootstrapping file created during installation.

Default: vertica

objectRestoreMode

Specifies how vbr handles objects of the same name when restoring schema or table backups, one of the following:

• createOrReplace: vbr creates any objects that do not exist. If an object does exist, vbr overwrites it with the version from the archive.

• create: vbr creates any objects that do not exist and does not replace existing objects. If an object being restored does exist, the restore fails.

• coexist: vbr creates the restored version of each object with a name formatted as follows:

  backup_timestamp_objectname
  

  This approach allows existing and restored objects to exist simultaneously. If the appended information pushes the schema name past the maximum length of 128 characters, Vertica truncates the name. You can perform a reverse lookup of the original schema name by querying the system table TRUNCATED_SCHEMATA.

In all modes, vbr restores data with the current epoch. Object restore mode settings do not apply to backups and full restores.

Default: createOrReplace

objects

For an object-level backup or object replication, specifies the object (schema or table) names to include. To specify more than one object, enter multiple names in a comma-delimited list. If you specify no objects, vbr creates a full backup.

Important

This parameter cannot be used together with the parameters includeObjects and excludeObjects.

You specify objects as follows:

• Specify table names in the form schema.objectname. For example, to make backups of the table customers from the schema finance, enter: finance.customers

  If a public table and a schema have the same name, vbr backs up only the schema. Use the schema.objectname convention to avoid confusion.

• Object names can include UTF-8 alphanumeric characters. Object names cannot include escape characters, single- (') or double-quote (") characters.

• Specify non-alphanumeric characters with a backslash () followed by a hex value. For instance, if the table name is my table (my followed by a space character, then table), enter the object name as follows:

  objects=my\20table
  

• If an object name includes a period, enclose the name with double quotes.

  Tip

  To identify objects with wildcards, use the includeObjects/excludeObjects parameters.

5 - [NodeMapping]

vbr uses the node mapping section exclusively to restore objects from a backup of one database to a different database. Be sure to update the [Mapping] section of your configuration file to point your target database nodes to their source backup locations. The target database must have at least as many UP nodes as the source database.

Use the following format to specify node mapping: source_node = target_node For example, you can use the following mapping to restore content from one 4-node database to an alternate 4-node database.

[NodeMapping]
v_sourcedb_node0001 = v_targetdb_node0001
v_sourcedb_node0002 = v_targetdb_node0002
v_sourcedb_node0003 = v_targetdb_node0003
v_sourcedb_node0004 = v_targetdb_node0004

See Restoring a database to an alternate cluster for a complete example.

6 - [transmission]

Sets options for transmitting data when using backup hosts.

concurrency_backup

Maximum number of backup TCP rsync connection threads per node. To improve local and remote backup, replication, and copy cluster performance, you can increase the number of threads available to perform backups.

Increasing the number of threads allocates more CPU resources to the backup task and can, for remote backups, increase the amount of bandwidth used. The optimal value for this setting depends greatly on your specific configuration and requirements. Values higher than 16 produce no additional benefit.

Default: 1

concurrency_delete

Maximum number of delete TCP rsync connections per node. To improve local and remote restore, replication, and copycluster performance, increase the number of threads available to delete files.

Increasing the number of threads allocates more CPU resources to the delete task and can increase the amount of bandwidth used for deletes on remote backups. The optimal value for this setting depends on your specific configuration and requirements.

Default: 16

concurrency_restore

Maximum number of restore TCP rsync connections per node. To improve local and remote restore, replication, and copycluster performance, increase the number of threads available to perform restores.

Increasing the number of threads allocates more CPU resources to the restore task and can increase the amount of bandwidth used for restores of remote backups. The optimal value for this setting depends greatly on your specific configuration and requirements. Values higher than 16 produce no additional benefit.

Default: 1

copyOnHardLinkFailure

If a hard-link local backup cannot create links, copy the data instead. Copying takes longer than linking, so the default behavior is to return an error if links cannot be created on any node.

Default: false

encrypt

Boolean, specifies whether transmitted data is encrypted while it is copied to the target backup location. Set this parameter to true only if performing a backup over an untrusted network—for example, backing up to a remote host across the Internet.

Important

Encrypting data transmission causes significant processing overhead and slows transfer. One of the processor cores of each database node is consumed during the encryption process. Use this option only if you are concerned about the security of the network used when transmitting backup data.

Omit this parameter from the configuration file for hard-link local backups. If you set both encrypt and hardLinkLocal to true in the same configuration file, vbr issues a warning and ignores encrypt.

Default: false

hardLinkLocal

Boolean, specifies whether to create a full- or object-level backup using hard file links on the local file system, rather than copying database files to a remote backup host. Add this configuration parameter manually to the Transaction section of the configuration file.

For details on usage, see Full Hardlink Backup/Restore.

Default: false

port_rsync

Default port number for the rsync protocol. Change this value if the default rsync port is in use on your cluster, or you need rsync to use another port to avoid a firewall restriction.

Default: 50000

serviceAccessUser

User name used for simple authentication of rsync connections. This user is neither a Linux nor Vertica user name, but rather an arbitrary identifier used by the rsync protocol. If you omit setting this parameter, rsync runs without authentication, which can create a potential security risk. If you choose to save the password, store it in the password configuration file.

total_bwlimit_backup

Total bandwidth limit in KBps for backup connections. Vertica distributes this bandwidth evenly among the number of connections set in concurrency_backup. The default value of 0 allows unlimited bandwidth.

The total network load allowed by this value is the number of nodes multiplied by the value of this parameter. For example, a three node cluster and a total_bwlimit_backup value of 100 would allow 300Kbytes/sec of network traffic.

Default: 0

total_bwlimit_restore

Total bandwidth limit in KBps for restore connections. distributes this bandwidth evenly among the number of connections set in concurrency_restore. The default value of 0 allows unlimited bandwidth.

The total network load allowed by this value is the number of nodes multiplied by the value of this parameter. For example, a three node cluster and a total_bwlimit_restore value of 100 would allow 300Kbytes/sec of network traffic.

Default: 0

7 - Password configuration file

For improved security, store passwords in a password configuration file and then restrict read access to that file. Set the passwordFile parameter in your vbr configuration file to this file.

[passwords] password settings

All password configuration parameters are inside the file's [Passwords] section.

dbPassword

Database administrator's Vertica password, used if the dbPromptForPassword parameter is false. This parameter is ignored if dbUseLocalConnection is set to true.

dest_dbPassword

Password for the dest_dbuser Vertica account, for replication tasks only.

serviceAccessPass

Password for the rsync user account.

Examples

See Password file.