How to install Wal-E

This is a step per step guide on how to install and configure Wal-E on a Ubuntu 16.04 or Ubuntu 14.04 server.

Install

1. First install the required packages from apt

   apt install -y python3-setuptools daemontools \
                  python3-pip python3-venv lzop \
                  software-properties-common \
                  apt-transport-https pv
   

   for Ubuntu 14.04 use

   apt install -y python3-setuptools daemontools python3-pip lzop \
                  software-properties-common apt-transport-https pv
                  
   # then install virtualenv
   pip3 install virtualenv
   

2. Create a virtual environment for Wal-E

   python3 -m venv /opt/wal-e
   

   for Ubuntu 14.04 use

   python3 -m virtualenv /opt/wal-e
   

3. In some cases you may get an error which says you're missing python3-venv and you need to install it. In this case you need to update your locales with

  export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8" export LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8" sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales  

1. Upgrade PIP

   /opt/wal-e/bin/pip3 install --upgrade pip
   

2. Install Wal-E and required Swift clients

   /opt/wal-e/bin/pip3 install wal-e python-swiftclient python-keystoneclient
   

3. Create Wal-E environment folder which holds the configuration

   mkdir -p /etc/wal-e.d/env
   

4. Create the environment files for Wal-E

5. WALE_SWIFT_PREFIX

swift://CONTAINER_NAME

1. SWIFT_AUTHURL

https://example.com:8010/auth/v1.0

1. SWIFT_USER

storage_account:access_key_id

The storage account is from your QNAP OSS. Mostly it is the same as the user you created in QNAP management.

1. SWIFT_PASSWORD

access_key_secret

1. SWIFT_AUTH_VERSION

1

QNAP OSS uses Swift auth version 1.

1. Change owner of Wal-E environment folder to the database user, mostly postgres.

   cd /etc
   chown -R postgres:postgres wal-e.d/
   

2. Add the following parameters to your postgresql.conf to enable WAL archiving

   wal_level = archive # hot_standby and logical in 9.x is also acceptable. wal_level should be 'hot_standby' in our setup
   archive_mode = on
   archive_command = 'envdir /etc/wal-e.d/env /opt/wal-e/bin/wal-e wal-push %p'
   archive_timeout = 60
   

You need to restart PostgreSQL to take the changes effect.

That's it.