Consul backend - VM vs Consul snapshots

Question

I have installed Vault and Consul as a cluster in 5 VMs. The installation went smoothly but I still have a question I can't find an answer.

I can make consul snapshot using consul snapshot save backup.snap and export it.

Where is stored K/V data of consul(not the snapshots)? Is it in a specific path on the system?

My question is:

If I do snapshots of my VMs, do I need to snapshot Consul or is the data of Consul saved in my VMs snapshot?

Thanks

Answer 1

It would be the same result as relying on a VM snapshot of a database VM to backup a database - don't.

Use the consul snapshot feature, because that would at least guarantee a proper snapshot that could be restored.

If you insist on performing a vm snapshot, at least create a hook to perform a consul snapshot -stale , this would save a backup of the consul database on that server.

Further reading: Consul Learn - Backup and restore