Migrating StackBlitz Data

By default, StackBlitz Enterprise Edition (EE) will deploy a basic PostgreSQL container instance for persisting user and project data. This provides trial users with the fastest possible deployment experience but is not well-suited for production use.

For production deployments, we suggest an external PostgreSQL solution with managed backups and security enhancements (for instance, PostgreSQL for Amazon RDS, or Azure Database for PostgreSQL). Once an external database is available, migrating your data away from the embedded database is simple.

Prerequisites

You will need:

• kubectl access to the Kubernetes cluster where StackBlitz is installed. On embedded installs, kubectl is fully configured already, so a login shell on the host (usually via SSH or console) is sufficient.
• Network reachability from your cluster node(s) to the target instance of PostgreSQL, which by default listens on TCP port 5432.

INFO

Most of the commands in this guide require you to provide the Kubernetes namespace where StackBlitz is installed. If you followed the embedded installation procedure, your namespace is default. If you installed into an existing Kubernetes cluster your namespace is stackblitz, unless a custom value was provided during installation.

Database Export

Execute the following on any host with kubectl access to the cluster:

K8S_NAMESPACE=<your stackblitz namespace> \
PG_POD=$(kubectl get pods -o name -n $K8S_NAMESPACE| grep 'postgres' | grep -v 'kots') && \
kubectl exec -n $K8S_NAMESPACE -it $PG_POD -- sh -c \
'pg_dump --if-exists -xcCO \
-U $POSTGRES_USER \
-d stackblitz_production' | \
gzip > stackblitz_dump.sql.gz

This will leave a compressed file called stackblitz_dump.sql.gz in the working directory which contains all SQL code necessary to recreate the stackblitz_production database, its schema, and all table data on another instance of PostgreSQL.

Database Import / Restore

From the same directory (wherever stackblitz_dump.sql.gz is stored), execute the following:

K8S_NAMESPACE=<your stackbltiz namespace> \
PG_POD=$(kubectl get pods -o name -n $K8S_NAMESPACE | grep 'postgres' | grep -v 'kots' | cut -d'/' -f2) && \
kubectl cp stackblitz_dump.sql.gz $K8S_NAMESPACE/$PG_POD:/var/lib/postgresql/data/stackblitz_dump.sql.gz && \
kubectl exec -n $K8S_NAMESPACE -it $PG_POD -- sh -c \
'zcat /var/lib/postgresql/data/stackblitz_dump.sql.gz | \
psql \
-h <managed DB hostname> \
-U <managed DB username>
-p <managed DB port (optional, 5432 by default)> \
-d postgres'

WARNING

The restore will create the stackblitz_production database and connect to it before restoring. If the DB already exists, it will drop it and create it again before restoring. In case it doesn't exist, we connect to the default postgres DB first. You must provide a username which is allowed to create, read, and write databases, tables, and indexes on the target PostgreSQL instance.

Encryption Key

This guide assumes the sole goal of migrating from the embedded PostgreSQL instance to an externally managed one. For users wanting to reinstall StackBlitz itself while retaining or migrating existing user and project data, the procedure mostly remains the same, except that StackBlitz's encryption key must be carried forward as well.

You can get the encryption key value from your existing StackBlitz deployment via the KOTS CLI:

kubectl kots get config -n <your stackblitz namespace> --sequence <current release sequence number> --appslug stackblitz | grep -A1 'stackblitz_enc'

TIP

You can get the current release sequence value by checking the release history panel in the KOTS admin dashboard, or with the following KOTS CLI command: kubectl kots get versions stackblitz -n <your StackBlitz namespace>. The current sequence number will be shown on the top.

This command will output values for stackblitz_enc_key_settings, stackblitz_enc_key, and if set, stackblitz_enc_custom_key.

If the value of stackblitz_enc_key_settings is stackblitz_default_generated, your encryption key is the value of stackblitz_enc_key.

Otherwise, it's the value of stackblitz_enc_custom_key.

Once you have the old encryption key, navigate to the KOTS admin dashboard, and select "Custom Key" in the "Key Settings" field. Paste the old encryption key into the "Custom Encryption Key" field that appears, then save and deploy the new configuration.