velero

What is velero?

The Velero image packages Velero, an open-source tool that provides disaster recovery, backup, and migration capabilities for Kubernetes clusters. It can back up and restore both Kubernetes objects (like deployments, services, and config maps) and persistent volumes, ensuring workloads can be recovered after failures or moved between clusters.

Velero is often deployed alongside object storage systems like MinIO or AWS S3 to store backup data. In addition to disaster recovery, it is frequently used to migrate workloads between environments (for example, from staging to production or between cloud providers).

Because it integrates with Kubernetes APIs directly, Velero is a standard choice for teams that need cluster-level resilience and portability.

How to use this image

The Velero image is primarily used via the Velero CLI and as part of a Kubernetes deployment.

Examples:

<code># Install Velero client locally via container
docker run --rm velero/velero version</code>

<code># Use Velero to back up a namespace
docker run --rm \
 -v $HOME/.kube/config:/root/.kube/config \
 velero/velero backup create my-backup --include-namespaces=my-namespace</code>

<code># Use Velero to restore a backup
docker run --rm \
 -v $HOME/.kube/config:/root/.kube/config \
 velero/velero restore create --from-backup my-backup</code>

In production, Velero is typically installed into the cluster itself using velero install, which deploys the necessary server components as pods. The image provides the Velero CLI and binaries to interact with those components.

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Image variants

The Velero image is usually published in a few main forms:

velero:<version>

Version-pinned images (e.g., velero:1.14.0) are recommended for production use to ensure reproducibility.

velero:latest

Tracks the most recently released stable version of Velero. Useful for testing but less predictable for production.

velero:nightly

Cut from the latest commits on the main branch. Intended for contributors or early adopters who want to try new features.