# Backing Up and Restoring an Entando Application

# Overview

This tutorial demonstrates how to use an existing Entando Application as a launching point for creating new applications. An alternative is to use the Entando Bundler to extract specific content and functionality from an existing application. Entando Bundles are recommended as a more flexible option when a full copy of an application is not required.

# Prerequisites

  • Java 11
  • Docker
  • Maven
  • Access to a Docker repository (docker.io or other)

# Create a Backup

This step requires using a running Entando environment to take an application backup. The output of this step is a local directory with the files (database and static assets) needed to restore the application later.

  1. Log into the App Builder

  2. Go to Administration → Database

  3. Click on Create A Backup and wait for the process to complete. The static assets and database backup will be saved to a persistent volume on the server pod under /entando-data.

  4. Transfer the files from the server-deployment. The exact command will depend on your Kubernetes environment.

kubectl OpenShift
kubectl cp <pod>:<path> <local-path> oc rsync <pod>:<path> <localPath>
e.g. kubectl cp quickstart-deployment-7b8c699599-f84zq:/entando-data backup e.g.oc rsync app-entando-deployment-67fd5b9954-s72mb:/entando-data
  1. You should see 3 directories - databases, protected, and resources. The protected directory contains the timestamped backup you triggered from the App Builder. The resources directory contains the static assets.

# Restore a Backup

Restoring a backup requires creating and then deploying a custom image of an Entando Application with the backup files included.

# Build the Custom Image

  1. Clone the Entando Application repository
git clone https://github.com/entando/entando-de-app
  1. Change into the entando-de-app directory:
cd entando-de-app
  1. (Optional) Checkout a branch for your desired Entando version. You can review https://github.com/entando/entando-de-app/releases (opens new window) to determine the correct tag to use.
git checkout -b my-test v7.0.0

WARNING

If you don't perform this step, you'll be creating an Entando Application based on the latest entando-de-app code, which may not yet be released.

  1. Move the resources and protected directory from your Entando backup into src/main/webapp. You should override any existing content.

  2. Build the application

mvn clean package

  1. Create a repository named entando-de-app-wildfly in Docker for the new application. The Entando Operator will expect this name when performing the initial install.

  2. Create a Docker image for the application. You'll need to provide your user name and version.

docker build . -f Dockerfile.wildfly -t YOUR-USER/entando-de-app-wildfly:YOUR-VERSION
  1. Push the image to Docker
docker push YOUR-USER/entando-de-app-wildfly:YOUR-VERSION

# Install the Application

You can use your typical install steps (or the standard Manual Install steps) with one adjustment. When you get to the Install namespace scoped resources step, you'll need to configure the namespace-resources.yaml to use your image.

  1. Retrieve a copy of the namespace-resources.yaml for your Entando version
curl -sfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/entando/entando-releases/v7.0.2/dist/ge-1-1-6/namespace-scoped-deployment/namespace-resources.yaml > namespace-resources.yaml
  1. Edit namespace-resources.yaml and update the entando-de-app-wildfly configuration with your user name and version
entando-de-app-wildfly: >-
    {"version":"YOUR-VERSION","executable-type":"jvm","registry":"docker.io","organization":"YOUR-USER"}
  1. Now apply the namespace resources to K8s
sudo kubectl apply -n entando -f namespace-resources.yaml

  1. You can now continue with the rest of the install instructions

  2. Once deployed, review the App Builder or running application to confirm the backup was restored correctly. You can check the deployment logs for possible errors.

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