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

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/

Specifies the path to an SSL server certificate bundle.

For example:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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, typically in this format:

v_dbname_node000int

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

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

IPv6 addresses must be enclosed by square brackets []. For example:

v_backup_restore_node0001 = [fdfb:dbfa:0:2000::112]:/backupdir/backup_restore.2021-06-01T16:17:57
v_backup_restore_node0002 = [fdfb:dbfa:0:2000::113]:/backupdir/backup_restore.2021-06-01T16:17:57
v_backup_restore_node0003 = [fdfb:dbfa:0:2000::114]:/backupdir/backup_restore.2021-06-01T16:17:57

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 --task backup

• 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.

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.

Default: 1

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

Absolute path to a temporary storage area on the cluster nodes. This 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.

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

Default: /tmp/vbr

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.

Default: false

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

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

This parameter can be set only if includeObjects is also set.

(Eon Mode on HDFS with high availability (HA) nodes only) 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.

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

(Eon Mode on HDFS only) 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.

(Eon Mode on HDFS only) Realm portion of the Vertica Kerberos principal.

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

(Eon Mode on HDFS only) 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

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

For an object-level backup or object replication, 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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 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