Disaster Backup and Restore

Backups

Every 3 hours, a backup of the Porta database is created on a non-primary machine (likely the Arbiter) and stored in the storage/app/Porta-Backups directory of the porta container. The backup is a ZIP archive containing an SQL dump of the database.

Note

The purpose of these files is to be used for disaster recovery in the event of catastrophic data loss.

The backup archive name is in the format machine_type-machine-connection_name-backup-Y-m-d-H-i-s.zip where Y-m-d-H-i-s is the date and time the backup was created.

Alternate Setups

• If your Porta On Prem installation is only running a single machine, the backups will be created on this machine.
• If your Porta On Prem installation is running on a single machine with an isolated backup machine, the backups will be created on both machines independently.

QuickRef

• Main machine database has container name porta-db
  • MySQL port 3306
  • Replication port 33061
• Backup machine database has container name porta-db-2
  • MySQL port 3307
  • Replication port 33062
• Arbiter machine database has container name porta-db-3
  • MySQL port 3308
  • Replication port 33063

View database logs

These logs will contain information about replication, and other MySQL logs.

• Helper: porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\view-database-log.bat

View database replication group members as reported by this machine

• Helper: porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\view-group-repl-status.bat

View database replication group members as reported by each machine

• Helper: porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\view-ALL-group-repl-status.bat

Start Group Replication

• Helper: porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\actions\START-repl.bat

Stop Group Replication

• Helper: porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\actions\STOP-repl.bat

Manually Creating a Backup

Porta will create backups automatically on its own, but in the event you want to create a backup manually, such as before performing a destructive replication recovery operation like a reset, you may do so by navigating to porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\action and running create-backup.bat.

The resulting backup will be located in the porta container in the /var/www/storage/app/Porta-Backups directory, with a name like machine_type-machine-connection_name-backup-Y-m-d-H-i-s.zip.

Recover from Data Loss

Single Node Disaster Recovery (Data Loss)

If only a single member needs to be restored, the broken database should be wiped, rebuilt, rejoin as a new member, and let replication restore it. No need for using backups to recover. See the “! Reset Database !” section in the recovery guide.

Once the database container reset has completed, the database should join the existing group and begin replicating data from the existing databases. Once the replicating has finished, the restoration is complete.

Multiple Node Disaster Recovery (Data Loss)

In most cases, in the event that disaster recovery is needed, most or all databases will be down or offline.

If any database containers on any machines are down, start them so that we can inspect their data and run the recovery steps. Group replication will fail on start but that’s ok; we just need the database to be running in order to access it.

1. If possible, manually run the backup tool on each machine.
   • See the “Manually Creating a Backup” section above
2. Stop each machine’s database container.
3. On the machine that contains the backup you would like to use to restore, reset the database container.
   • See the “! Reset Database !” section in the recovery guide.
4. Once the database container reset has completed, the container should be running and you may now run the restore tool and choose the backup file to restore from. Ideally, this would be the most recent backup among all the machines.
   • See the “Restoring from a backup made with the backup tool” section below.
5. Once the restore has completed, reset the database containers on the other machines
   • See the “! Reset Database !” section in the recovery guide.
6. Once the database container reset has completed, each machine’s database should join the existing group and begin replicating data from the restored database.
7. Once the database containers have joined the group and finished replicating data, the restoration is complete.

Restoring from a Backup Made with the Backup Tool

Navigate to porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\actions and run restore-from-backup.bat

You will eventually be prompted to choose a backup file to restore with. Enter the number corresponding to the backup you would like to restore and press Enter.

Failover Recovery with Unreal Engine

Note: After the main PX has recovered, to set the PX in use back to the main PX, run the make px1 primary.bat batch file located on the desktop of the RX.

Total Machine Failure - Power or Network Loss

Run the RX batch file make px2 primary.bat located on the desktop of the RX to switch the running Unreal project to the backup PX.

Partial Machine Failure - Service/Performance Loss

Stop Porta’s socket server (porta-socket) by running stop-porta-socket.bat in porta-onprem-bundle/porta-helpers/porta-run on the failed PX.

Run the RX batch file make px2 primary.bat located on the desktop to switch the running Unreal project to the backup PX.