Run & Manage MySQL in GKE Using KubeDB

Overview

The databases that KubeDB support are MySQL, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, Percona XtraDB, ProxySQL, Memcached and PgBouncer. You can find the guides to all the supported databases here . In this tutorial we will deploy MySQL database. We will cover the following steps:

  1. Install KubeDB
  2. Deploy Standalone MySQL Database
  3. Install Stash
  4. Backup MySQL Database Using Stash
  5. Recover MySQL Database Using Stash

Install KubeDB

We will follow the following steps to install KubeDB.

Step 1: Get Cluster ID

We need the cluster ID to get the KubeDB License. To get cluster ID we can run the following command:

$ kubectl get ns kube-system -o jsonpath='{.metadata.uid}'
072b6733-d4aa-45da-9d6b-d095bd5e43e4 

Step 2: Get License

Go to Appscode License Server to get the license.txt file. For this tutorial we will use KubeDB Enterprise Edition.

License Server

Step 3: Install KubeDB

We will use helm to install KubeDB. Please install helm here if it is not already installed. Now, let’s install KubeDB.

$ helm repo add appscode https://charts.appscode.com/stable/
$ helm repo update

$ helm search repo appscode/kubedb
NAME                      	CHART VERSION	APP VERSION	DESCRIPTION                                       
appscode/kubedb           	v2021.12.21  	v2021.12.21	KubeDB by AppsCode - Production ready databases...
appscode/kubedb-autoscaler	v0.9.2       	v0.9.2     	KubeDB Autoscaler by AppsCode - Autoscale KubeD...
appscode/kubedb-catalog   	v2021.12.21  	v2021.12.21	KubeDB Catalog by AppsCode - Catalog for databa...
appscode/kubedb-community 	v0.24.2      	v0.24.2    	KubeDB Community by AppsCode - Community featur...
appscode/kubedb-crds      	v2021.12.21  	v2021.12.21	KubeDB Custom Resource Definitions                
appscode/kubedb-enterprise	v0.11.2      	v0.11.2    	KubeDB Enterprise by AppsCode - Enterprise feat...
appscode/kubedb-metrics   	v2021.12.21  	v2021.12.21	KubeDB State Metrics                              
appscode/kubedb-opscenter 	v2021.12.21  	v2021.12.21	KubeDB Opscenter by AppsCode                      
appscode/kubedb-ui-server 	v2021.12.21  	v2021.12.21	A Helm chart for kubedb-ui-server by AppsCode

# Install KubeDB Enterprise operator chart
$ helm install kubedb appscode/kubedb \
    --version v2021.12.21 \
    --namespace kubedb --create-namespace \
    --set kubedb-enterprise.enabled=true \
    --set kubedb-autoscaler.enabled=true \
    --set-file global.license=/path/to/the/license.txt

Let’s verify the installation:

$ watch kubectl get pods --all-namespaces -l "app.kubernetes.io/instance=kubedb"

NAMESPACE   NAME                                        READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kubedb      kubedb-kubedb-autoscaler-67d7b8bbc-hd67d    1/1     Running   0          3m22s
kubedb      kubedb-kubedb-community-65848c9969-fjlgm    1/1     Running   0          3m22s
kubedb      kubedb-kubedb-enterprise-6d69fdc577-xmkgc   1/1     Running   0          3m22s

We can list the CRD Groups that have been registered by the operator by running the following command:

$ kubectl get crd -l app.kubernetes.io/name=kubedb
NAME                                              CREATED AT
elasticsearchautoscalers.autoscaling.kubedb.com   2022-01-12T06:07:25Z
elasticsearches.kubedb.com                        2022-01-12T06:07:49Z
elasticsearchopsrequests.ops.kubedb.com           2022-01-12T06:07:49Z
elasticsearchversions.catalog.kubedb.com          2022-01-12T06:06:42Z
etcds.kubedb.com                                  2022-01-12T06:08:19Z
etcdversions.catalog.kubedb.com                   2022-01-12T06:06:42Z
mariadbopsrequests.ops.kubedb.com                 2022-01-12T06:08:02Z
mariadbs.kubedb.com                               2022-01-12T06:08:02Z
mariadbversions.catalog.kubedb.com                2022-01-12T06:06:42Z
memcacheds.kubedb.com                             2022-01-12T06:08:20Z
memcachedversions.catalog.kubedb.com              2022-01-12T06:06:42Z
mongodbautoscalers.autoscaling.kubedb.com         2022-01-12T06:07:22Z
mongodbopsrequests.ops.kubedb.com                 2022-01-12T06:07:52Z
mongodbs.kubedb.com                               2022-01-12T06:07:53Z
mongodbversions.catalog.kubedb.com                2022-01-12T06:06:42Z
mysqlopsrequests.ops.kubedb.com                   2022-01-12T06:07:59Z
mysqls.kubedb.com                                 2022-01-12T06:07:59Z
mysqlversions.catalog.kubedb.com                  2022-01-12T06:06:42Z
perconaxtradbs.kubedb.com                         2022-01-12T06:08:21Z
perconaxtradbversions.catalog.kubedb.com          2022-01-12T06:06:42Z
pgbouncers.kubedb.com                             2022-01-12T06:07:56Z
pgbouncerversions.catalog.kubedb.com              2022-01-12T06:06:42Z
postgreses.kubedb.com                             2022-01-12T06:08:09Z
postgresopsrequests.ops.kubedb.com                2022-01-12T06:08:09Z
postgresversions.catalog.kubedb.com               2022-01-12T06:06:42Z
proxysqls.kubedb.com                              2022-01-12T06:08:21Z
proxysqlversions.catalog.kubedb.com               2022-01-12T06:06:42Z
redises.kubedb.com                                2022-01-12T06:08:06Z
redisopsrequests.ops.kubedb.com                   2022-01-12T06:08:06Z
redissentinels.kubedb.com                         2022-01-12T06:08:06Z
redisversions.catalog.kubedb.com                  2022-01-12T06:06:42Z

Deploy Standalone MySQL Database

Now we are going to Install MySQL with the help of KubeDB. At first, let’s create a Namespace in which we will deploy the database.

$ kubectl create ns demo
namespace/demo created

Here is the yaml of the MySQL CRD we are going to use:

apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1alpha2
kind: MySQL
metadata:
  name: sample-mysql
  namespace: demo
spec:
  version: "8.0.27"
  replicas: 1
  storageType: Durable
  storage:
    accessModes:
      - ReadWriteOnce
    resources:
      requests:
        storage: 1Gi
  terminationPolicy: WipeOut

Let’s save this yaml configuration into mysql.yaml Then create the above MySQL CRD

$ kubectl create -f mysql.yaml
mysql.kubedb.com/sample-mysql created
  • In this yaml we can see in the spec.version field the version of MySQL. You can list the KubeDB supported versions of MySQL by running kubectl get mysqlversion command.
  • Another field to notice is the spec.storageType field. This can be Durable or Ephemeral depending on the requirements of the database to be persistent or not.
  • Lastly, the spec.terminationPolicy field is Wipeout means that the database will be deleted without restrictions. It can also be “Halt”, “Delete” and “DoNotTerminate”. Learn More about these HERE .

Once these are handled correctly and the MySQL object is deployed you will see that the following are created:

$ kubectl get all -n demo
NAME                 READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
pod/sample-mysql-0   2/2     Running   0          7m47s

NAME                        TYPE        CLUSTER-IP    EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)    AGE
service/sample-mysql        ClusterIP   10.96.8.235   <none>        3306/TCP   7m47s
service/sample-mysql-pods   ClusterIP   None          <none>        3306/TCP   7m47s

NAME                            READY   AGE
statefulset.apps/sample-mysql   1/1     7m47s

NAME                                              TYPE               VERSION   AGE
appbinding.appcatalog.appscode.com/sample-mysql   kubedb.com/mysql   8.0.27    7m46s

NAME                            VERSION   STATUS   AGE
mysql.kubedb.com/sample-mysql   8.0.27    Ready    7m47s

We have successfully deployed MySQL in GKE. Now we can exec into the container to use the database.

Accessing Database Through CLI

To access the database through CLI we have to exec into the container:

$ kubectl get secrets -n demo sample-mysql-auth -o jsonpath='{.data.username}' | base64 -d
root
$ kubectl get secrets -n demo sample-mysql-auth -o jsonpath='{.data.password}' | base64 -d
oY3k-srIF;8BwePU
$ kubectl exec -it sample-mysql-0 -n demo -- bash
Defaulted container "mysql" out of: mysql, mysql-coordinator, mysql-init (init) 

Then to login into MySQL:

root@sample-mysql-0:/# mysql --user=root --password='oY3k-srIF;8BwePU'
mysql: [Warning] Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 2350
Server version: 8.0.27 MySQL Community Server - GPL

Copyright (c) 2000, 2021, Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

Now we have entered into the MySQL CLI and we can create and delete as we want. Let’s create a database called Music and create a table called Bands in that database:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE Music;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| Music              |
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
| sys                |
+--------------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> CREATE TABLE Music.Bands ( id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, Name VARCHAR(50), Album VARCHAR(25), PRIMARY KEY(id));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.02 sec)

mysql> SHOW TABLES IN Music;
+-----------------+
| Tables_in_Music |
+-----------------+
| Bands           |
+-----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO Music.Bands (Name, Album) VALUES ("The Beatles", "Abbey Road");
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> SELECT * FROM Music.Bands;
+----+-------------+------------+
| id | Name        | Album      |
+----+-------------+------------+
|  1 | The Beatles | Abbey Road |
+----+-------------+------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> exit 
Bye

This was just one example of database deployment. The other databases that KubeDB support are Elasticsearch, MongoDB, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, Percona XtraDB, ProxySQL, Memcached and PgBouncer. The tutorials on how to deploy these into the cluster can be found HERE

Backup MySQL Database Using Stash

Here, we are going to use Stash to backup the database we deployed before.

Step 1: Install Stash

Go to Appscode License Server again to get the Stash Enterprise license. Here, we will use the Stash Enterprise license that we obtained.

$ helm install stash appscode/stash              \
   --version v2021.11.24                         \
   --namespace kube-system                       \
   --set features.enterprise=true                \
   --set-file global.license=/path/to/the/license.txt

Let’s verify the installation:

$ kubectl get pods --all-namespaces -l app.kubernetes.io/name=stash-enterprise --watch
NAMESPACE     NAME                                     READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
kube-system   stash-stash-enterprise-d6664c57c-k6pb2   2/2     Running   0          2m28s

Now, to confirm CRD groups have been registered by the operator, run the following command:

kubectl get crd -l app.kubernetes.io/name=stash
NAME                                      CREATED AT
backupbatches.stash.appscode.com          2022-01-12T06:49:31Z
backupblueprints.stash.appscode.com       2022-01-12T06:49:32Z
backupconfigurations.stash.appscode.com   2022-01-12T06:49:31Z
backupsessions.stash.appscode.com         2022-01-12T06:49:31Z
functions.stash.appscode.com              2022-01-12T06:48:56Z
recoveries.stash.appscode.com             2022-01-12T06:49:31Z
repositories.stash.appscode.com           2022-01-12T06:49:31Z
restics.stash.appscode.com                2022-01-12T06:49:31Z
restorebatches.stash.appscode.com         2022-01-12T06:49:32Z
restoresessions.stash.appscode.com        2022-01-12T06:49:31Z
tasks.stash.appscode.com                  2022-01-12T06:48:56Z

Step 2: Prepare Backend

Stash supports various backends for storing data snapshots. It can be a cloud storage like GCS bucket, AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage etc. or a Kubernetes persistent volume like HostPath, PersistentVolumeClaim, NFS etc.

For this tutorial we are going to use gcs-bucket. You can find other setups here .

My Empty GCS bucket

At first we need to create a secret so that we can access the gcs bucket. We can do that by the following code:

$ echo -n 'YOURPASSWORD' > RESTIC_PASSWORD
$ echo -n 'YOURPROJECTNAME' > GOOGLE_PROJECT_ID
$ cat /PATH/TO/JSONKEY.json > GOOGLE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON_KEY
$ kubectl create secret generic -n demo gcs-secret \
        --from-file=./RESTIC_PASSWORD \
        --from-file=./GOOGLE_PROJECT_ID \
        --from-file=./GOOGLE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON_KEY

Step 3: Create Repository

apiVersion: stash.appscode.com/v1alpha1
kind: Repository
metadata:
  name: gcs-repo
  namespace: demo
spec:
  backend:
    gcs:
      bucket: stash-backup-dipta
      prefix: /demo/mysql/sample-mysql
    storageSecretName: gcs-secret

This repository CRD specifies the gcs-secret we created before and stores the name and path to the gcs-bucket. It also specifies the location in the bucket where we want to backup our database.

Here, My bucket name is stash-backup-dipta. Don’t forget to change spec.backend.gcs.bucket to your bucket name.

Step 4: Create BackupConfiguration

Now we need to create a BackupConfiguration file that specifies what to backup, where to backup and when to backup.

apiVersion: stash.appscode.com/v1beta1
kind: BackupConfiguration
metadata:
  name: sample-mysql-backup
  namespace: demo
spec:
  schedule: "*/5 * * * *"
  repository:
    name: gcs-repo
  target:
    ref:
      apiVersion: appcatalog.appscode.com/v1alpha1
      kind: AppBinding
      name: sample-mysql
  retentionPolicy:
    name: keep-last-5
    keepLast: 5
    prune: true
  • BackupConfiguration creates a cronjob that backs up the specified database (spec.target) every 5 minutes.
  • spec.repository contains the secret we created before called gcs-secret.
  • spec.target.ref contains the reference to the appbinding that we want to backup. So, after 5 minutes we can see the following status:
$ kubectl get backupsession -n demo
NAME                             INVOKER-TYPE          INVOKER-NAME          PHASE       DURATION   AGE
sample-mysql-backup-1641979505   BackupConfiguration   sample-mysql-backup   Succeeded   31s        75s

$ kubectl get repository -n demo
NAME       INTEGRITY   SIZE        SNAPSHOT-COUNT   LAST-SUCCESSFUL-BACKUP   AGE
gcs-repo   true        4.704 MiB   2                4m26s                    12m

Now if we check our GCS bucket we can see that the backup has been successful.

gcsSuccess

If you have reached here, CONGRATULATIONS!! 🎊 🥳 🎊 You have successfully backed up MySQL Database using Stash. If you had any problem during the backup process, you can reach out to us via EMAIL .

Recover MySQL Database Using Stash

Let’s think of a scenario in which the database has been accidentally deleted or there was an error in the database causing it to crash. In such a case, we have to pause the BackupConfiguration so that the failed/damaged database does not get backed up into the cloud:

$ kubectl patch backupconfiguration -n demo sample-mysql-backup --type="merge" --patch='{"spec": {"paused": true}}'

At first let’s simulate accidental database deletion.

$ kubectl exec -it sample-mysql-0 -n demo -- bash
Defaulted container "mysql" out of: mysql, mysql-coordinator, mysql-init (init)
root@sample-mysql-0:/# mysql --user=root --password='oY3k-srIF;8BwePU'
mysql: [Warning] Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 3501
Server version: 8.0.27 MySQL Community Server - GPL

Copyright (c) 2000, 2021, Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| Music              |
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
| sys                |
+--------------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> DROP DATABASE Music;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.02 sec)

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
| sys                |
+--------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Step 1: Create a RestoreSession

Below, is the contents of YAML file of the RestoreSession object that we are going to create.

apiVersion: stash.appscode.com/v1beta1
kind: RestoreSession
metadata:
  name: sample-mysql-restore
  namespace: demo
spec:
  repository:
    name: gcs-repo
  target:
    ref:
      apiVersion: appcatalog.appscode.com/v1alpha1
      kind: AppBinding
      name: sample-mysql
  rules:
    - snapshots: [latest]

Now, let’s create RestoreSession that will initiate restoring from the cloud.

$ kubectl create -f sample-mysql-restore.yaml
restoresession.stash.appscode.com/sample-mysql-restore created

This RestoreSession specifies where the data will be restored. Once this is applied, a RestoreSession will be created. Once it has succeeded, the database has been successfully recovered as you can see below:

$ kubectl get restoresession -n demo
NAME                   REPOSITORY   PHASE       DURATION   AGE
sample-mysql-restore   gcs-repo     Succeeded   17s        22s

Now let’s check whether the database has been correctly restored:

$ kubectl exec -it sample-mysql-0 -n demo -- bash
Defaulted container "mysql" out of: mysql, mysql-coordinator, mysql-init (init)
root@sample-mysql-0:/# mysql --user=root --password='oY3k-srIF;8BwePU'
mysql: [Warning] Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 3888
Server version: 8.0.27 MySQL Community Server - GPL

Copyright (c) 2000, 2021, Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| Music              |
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
| sys                |
+--------------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

You can see the Database Music has been restored. The recovery of MySQL Database has been successful. If you faced any difficulties in the recovery process, you can reach out to us through EMAIL .

We have made an in depth video on how to Run & Manage production-grade MySQL Database in Kubernetes cluster using KubeDB. You can have a look into the video below:

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