1. Proposed title of this feature request

Need a reliable Satellite Backup while the satellite services are online

3. What is the nature and description of the request?

The customer requires a reliable satellite backup mechanism to capture the full backup (preferable a snapshot on the DB) without satellite downtime.
At the moment, they uses the satellite online backup as they can't afford to stop the satellite services while the backup is running for hours.
They uses the backup to restore a clone production satellite to divert the satellite traffic to the clone while the production satellite is doing some maintenance works.

Currently, duplicate entries on the DB occurs during the DB dumped by the online backup. Specifically, there are duplicate entries on the foreman DB settings table which causes the backup restoration to fail. This issue happens multiple times during the customer's backup restore activities and has to be addressed before retrying the restore which takes hours.

This is the customer's say:

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So, I am looking for suggestions on an alternative method that we can get a clean DB backup without shutting down the primary satellite. We do not want to have to keep manually sanitizing the DB backup so that it will restore to the backup without errors. Our current automated solution does a full backup of the primary and restores to the backup so that we have a "warm" backup to failover to if needed.

One idea I have for getting a more consistent DB backup while the primary is online is:

• Creating an online synced read only copy of the primary's Postgres DB on a different server. Taking an offline database backup from the different server to restore to the backup satellite.

My question would be is this possible with the RH postgresql version we are using with Satellite?
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4. Why does the customer need this? (List the business requirements here)

The customer requires a backup method that can get a clean DB backup without shutting down the primary satellite.
The customer prefer to use the backup facility provided in Satellite than VMware vm snapshot of the primary Sat as their data is very huge (20+ external Capsules, 50K+ registered Hosts, TB of content synced)

5. How would the customer like to achieve this? (List the functional requirements here)

• Be able to run a full backup without shutting down the production satellite using a feature available/provided by Satellite that would copy the existing DB of the primary without duplicate entries
  on DB tables.
• Run satellite-restore in 1 try as each run takes ~4 hours
• Secondary satellite services running without failure, route the traffic seamlessly to the secondary Satellite.

6. For each functional requirement listed, specify how Red Hat and the customer can test to confirm the requirement is successfully implemented.

• Customer is willing to provide their DB backup for robust testing.

7. Is there already an existing RFE upstream or in Red Hat Bugzilla?

No.

8. Does the customer have any specific timeline dependencies and which release would they like to target (i.e. RHEL5, RHEL6)?

If possible, the feature will be available on the next releases of Sat6.

9. Is the sales team involved in this request and do they have any additional input?

TAMs on this account (North America, Asia Pacific) are heavily involved.

10. List any affected packages or components.

rubygem-foreman_maintain

11. Would the customer be able to assist in testing this functionality if implemented?

Yes.