index.asciidoc

Manage the snapshot lifecycle

You can set up snapshot lifecycle policies to automate the timing, frequency, and retention of snapshots. Snapshot policies can apply to multiple data streams and indices.

The snapshot lifecycle management (SLM) CRUD APIs provide the building blocks for the snapshot policy features that are part of the Management application in {kib}. The Snapshot and Restore UI makes it easy to set up policies, register snapshot repositories, view and manage snapshots, and restore data streams or indices.

You can stop and restart SLM to temporarily pause automatic backups while performing upgrades or other maintenance.

Security and SLM

Two built-in cluster privileges control access to the SLM actions when {es} {security-features} are enabled:

manage_slm

Allows a user to perform all SLM actions, including creating and updating policies and starting and stopping SLM.

read_slm

Allows a user to perform all read-only SLM actions, such as getting policies and checking the SLM status.

cluster:admin/snapshot/*

Allows a user to take and delete snapshots of any index, whether or not they have access to that index.

For example, the following request configures an slm-admin role that grants the privileges necessary for administering SLM.

POST /_security/role/slm-admin
{
  "cluster": ["manage_slm", "cluster:admin/snapshot/*"],
  "indices": [
    {
      "names": [".slm-history-*"],
      "privileges": ["all"]
    }
  ]
}

Or, for a read-only role that can retrieve policies (but not update, execute, or delete them), as well as only view the history index:

POST /_security/role/slm-read-only
{
  "cluster": ["read_slm"],
  "indices": [
    {
      "names": [".slm-history-*"],
      "privileges": ["read"]
    }
  ]
}

getting-started-slm.asciidoc

slm-retention.asciidoc