Backing Up HDFS Metadata

Minimum Required Role: Cluster Administrator (also provided by Full Administrator)

  1. Stop the cluster. It is particularly important that the NameNode role process is not running so that you can make a consistent backup.
  2. Go to the HDFS service.
  3. Click the Configuration tab.
  4. In the Search field, search for "NameNode Data Directories". This locates the NameNode Data Directories property.
  5. From the command line on the NameNode host, back up the directory listed in the NameNode Data Directories property. If more than one is listed, then you only need to make a backup of one directory, since each directory is a complete copy. For example, if the data directory is /mnt/hadoop/hdfs/name, do the following as root: 
    # cd /mnt/hadoop/hdfs/name
# tar -cvf /root/nn_backup_data.tar .

    You should see output like this:

    ./
./current/
./current/fsimage
./current/fstime
./current/VERSION
./current/edits
./image/
./image/fsimage