Run in custom namespace

In Ark version 0.7.0 and later, you can run Ark in any namespace. To do so, you specify the namespace in the YAML files that configure the Ark server. You then also specify the namespace when you run Ark client commands.

Edit the example files

The Ark repository includes a set of examples that you can use to set up your Ark server. The examples place the server in the heptio-ark-server namespace, and backup/schedule/restore/config data in the heptio-ark namespace.

To run the server in another namespace, you edit the relevant files, changing heptio-ark-server to your desired namespace.

To store your backups, schedules, restores, and config in another namespace, you edit the relevant files, changing heptio-ark to your desired namespace.

WARNING: It is recommended to run the Ark server in one namespace, and place your backups, schedules, restores, and config in a different namespace. You might encounter issues with deleting a single Ark namespace that contains everything.

For all cloud providers, edit https://github.com/heptio/ark/blob/main/examples/common/00-prereqs.yaml. This file defines:

• CustomResourceDefinitions for the Ark objects (backups, schedules, restores, configs, downloadrequests)
• The namespace where the Ark server runs
• The namespace where backups, schedules, restores, and the config are stored
• The Ark service account
• The RBAC rules to grant permissions to the Ark service account

AWS

For AWS, edit:

• https://github.com/heptio/ark/blob/main/examples/common/10-deployment.yaml
• https://github.com/heptio/ark/blob/main/examples/aws/00-ark-config.yaml

GCP

For GCP, edit:

• https://github.com/heptio/ark/blob/main/examples/common/10-deployment.yaml
• https://github.com/heptio/ark/blob/main/examples/gcp/00-ark-config.yaml

Azure

For Azure, edit:

• https://github.com/heptio/ark/blob/main/examples/azure/00-ark-deployment.yaml
• https://github.com/heptio/ark/blob/main/examples/azure/10-ark-config.yaml

Specify the namespace in client commands

To specify the namespace for all Ark client commands, run:

ark client config set namespace=<NAMESPACE_VALUE>