Migrating from VolSync

Translate VolSync ReplicationSource and ReplicationDestination objects into kopiur SnapshotPolicy, SnapshotSchedule and Restore manifests. They are printed as apply-ready YAML, and --apply creates them with server-side apply. All global flags apply.

Two VolSync movers are supported, and their data semantics are very different. The command detects which one each object uses, by looking for spec.restic or spec.kopia, and a namespace holding both translates in one run.

Mover	Where it comes from	What migration means
restic	upstream VolSync	Config translation ONLY: the repository formats are incompatible, so the kopiur repository starts empty.
kopia	the perfectra1n/volsync fork	The repository is a kopia repository: kopiur adopts it in place, so all existing snapshots are preserved and history continues.

$ kubectl kopiur migrate volsync -n media --resolve-secrets --apply

Flag	Effect
--name NAME	Translate one ReplicationSource (default: every one in the namespace).
--repository NAME [--repository-kind …]	Point the translated policies at an EXISTING kopiur repository.
--resolve-secrets	Instead, parse each repository Secret and EMIT a kopiur Repository derived from it. restic: + credential Secrets, with a REPLACE_ME kopia password you must set (a kopia repo needs its own new password); --apply refuses while any placeholder remains. kopia (fork): the existing repository is adopted: the Secret is referenced in place, no placeholder, so --apply works in one shot.
--include-destinations	Also translate ReplicationDestinations into Restores. restic (and kopia without an identity): deploy-or-restore fromPolicy + onMissingSnapshot: Continue. kopia with sourceIdentity or username/hostname: a raw-identity restore (source.identity), no policy pairing needed.
--strict	Exit 1 (emitting nothing) when any field has no kopiur equivalent. A minimal fork-kopia source is fully mappable and passes.
--apply	Server-side-apply the translated objects.
-f, --filename PATH	Read VolSync objects from a YAML file, a directory, or - (stdin) instead of the cluster. No kubeconfig required. Repeatable. See Offline / GitOps mode.
--secrets PATH	In offline mode, resolve repository Secrets from plaintext Secret YAML on disk (file/dir/-). Repeatable; needs --resolve-secrets.
--from-cluster-secrets	In offline mode, fetch the referenced Secrets from the live cluster instead of --secrets.
--out-dir DIR	Write one YAML file per ReplicationSource (plus _shared.yaml for derived Repositories/Secrets) into DIR instead of stdout.
--force	Allow --out-dir to overwrite existing files.

Every VolSync field the translator reads is accounted for on stderr. It is either mapped, with the kopiur destination named; UNMAPPABLE, with the reason and what to do instead, for example that restic’s retain.within has no kopia equivalent; or ignored, with the reason it is not needed, for example that pruneIntervalDays is unnecessary because kopiur manages maintenance by default. Nothing is dropped silently.

Offline / GitOps mode

If your VolSync objects live as YAML in a Git repository rather than only in the cluster, point migrate volsync at the files with -f/--filename. That takes a file, a directory containing *.yaml and *.yml files, or - for stdin.

With -f, the command reads nothing from the cluster unless you ask it to, so it needs no kubeconfig:

$ kubectl kopiur migrate volsync -f ./apps/media/volsync.yaml --repository nas --out-dir ./apps/media/kopiur
wrote 2 file(s) to ./apps/media/kopiur:
  _shared.yaml
  media-app.yaml

--out-dir writes one file per ReplicationSource, named after it, plus a _shared.yaml holding any derived Repository and credential Secrets shared across sources. Those files are ready to commit. Without --out-dir the manifests stream to stdout as before.

You can also pipe the cluster’s objects through it, and a kind: List is unwrapped automatically:

$ kubectl get replicationsource -A -o yaml | kubectl kopiur migrate volsync -f - --repository nas

Credentials offline have three options, because your SOPS-encrypted Secrets cannot be read straight from Git:

You want	Use
Point policies at a kopiur Repository you author/migrate separately, with no Secret reads	--repository NAME
Derive the Repository from plaintext Secret YAML on disk	--resolve-secrets --secrets ./secrets.yaml
Read VolSync from files but fetch Secrets from the live cluster (e.g. Flux already decrypted them)	--resolve-secrets --from-cluster-secrets

--apply is rejected with offline input. Review the emitted files and kubectl apply -f them yourself.

Each object’s namespace comes from its own metadata.namespace. -n only supplies a fallback for objects with no namespace, and it never filters offline input.

Try it offline

deploy/examples/tryit/volsync-offline.yaml is a GitOps-shaped bundle: two fork-kopia ReplicationSources in the apps namespace, plus the repository Secrets they reference. Nothing here touches a cluster, so you can run the whole arc on your laptop with no kubeconfig.

# Two fork-kopia ReplicationSources — one file per app comes out, named after
# each source (blog.yaml, forum.yaml). `repository` names the Secret below.
apiVersion: volsync.backube/v1alpha1
kind: ReplicationSource
metadata:
  name: blog
  namespace: apps
spec:
  sourcePVC: blog-data
  trigger:
    schedule: "0 2 * * *"
  kopia:
    repository: blog-kopia-repo # -> Secret blog-kopia-repo (below)
    copyMethod: Direct
    retain:
      daily: 7
      weekly: 4
---
apiVersion: volsync.backube/v1alpha1
kind: ReplicationSource
metadata:
  name: forum
  namespace: apps
spec:
  sourcePVC: forum-data
  trigger:
    schedule: "30 3 * * *"
  kopia:
    repository: forum-kopia-repo # -> Secret forum-kopia-repo (below)
    copyMethod: Direct
    retain:
      daily: 14
      monthly: 6

1. Point the policies at an existing kopiur Repository. This is the simplest path, with no Secret reads at all:

$ kubectl kopiur migrate volsync -f deploy/examples/tryit/volsync-offline.yaml --repository nas --out-dir ./migrated
wrote 2 file(s) to ./migrated:
  blog.yaml
  forum.yaml

You get one file per source, migrated/blog.yaml and migrated/forum.yaml. Each holds a SnapshotPolicy and a SnapshotSchedule pointing at the nas repository, ready to commit.

2. Or derive the Repository from the Secrets with --resolve-secrets. The Secrets live in the same bundle: -f reads only the ReplicationSources and --secrets reads only the Secrets, so one file feeds both flags. In a real repository, decrypt your SOPS Secrets to a scratch file first.

# The repository Secrets, as plaintext for offline `--resolve-secrets --secrets`.
# In a real GitOps repo these are SOPS-encrypted; decrypt them to a scratch file
# for the migrate run, or skip them entirely with `--repository`/
# `--from-cluster-secrets`. KOPIA_REPOSITORY picks the backend to ADOPT;
# KOPIA_PASSWORD + AWS_* are referenced in place by the emitted Repository.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: blog-kopia-repo
  namespace: apps
type: Opaque
stringData:
  KOPIA_REPOSITORY: "s3://my-kopia-bucket/blog/"
  KOPIA_PASSWORD: "REPLACE_ME" # the EXISTING repo password — reuse it
  AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: "REPLACE_ME"
  AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: "REPLACE_ME"
  AWS_S3_ENDPOINT: "s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com"
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: forum-kopia-repo
  namespace: apps
type: Opaque
stringData:
  KOPIA_REPOSITORY: "s3://my-kopia-bucket/forum/"
  KOPIA_PASSWORD: "REPLACE_ME" # the EXISTING repo password — reuse it
  AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: "REPLACE_ME"
  AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: "REPLACE_ME"
  AWS_S3_ENDPOINT: "s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com"

$ kubectl kopiur migrate volsync -f deploy/examples/tryit/volsync-offline.yaml \
    --resolve-secrets --secrets deploy/examples/tryit/volsync-offline.yaml --out-dir ./migrated --force
wrote 3 file(s) to ./migrated:
  _shared.yaml
  blog.yaml
  forum.yaml

Now migrated/_shared.yaml carries the two derived Repository objects, each adopting the fork repository in place, with no create block and the Secret referenced where it sits. The per-source files reference them. Fork-kopia has no password placeholder, so the result is ready to apply.

Already running against the cluster?

Drop --secrets for --from-cluster-secrets and the same command reads the live Secrets instead, which is handy when Flux has already decrypted them into the cluster. Or pipe the cluster’s objects straight in: kubectl get replicationsource -A -o yaml | kubectl kopiur migrate volsync -f - --repository nas.

3. Review and apply. --apply is refused offline by design, so commit the files, or apply them yourself:

$ kubectl apply -f ./migrated

restic sources (upstream VolSync)

Config translation ONLY, no data is migrated

A VolSync restic repository is NOT a kopia repository. The kopiur repository the translated policies point at starts empty, and it fills as kopiur takes its own snapshots. Keep VolSync and its repository running until kopiur’s retention coverage is enough for your recovery needs.

$ kubectl kopiur migrate volsync -n media --repository nas --apply

With --resolve-secrets, the translator parses the restic Secret’s RESTIC_REPOSITORY URL into a kopiur Repository backend, one of s3, b2, azure, gcs or filesystem. It carries the backend credentials into a new <secret>-kopiur-creds Secret under kopia’s environment names, because restic’s differ for B2 and Azure.

The kopia password is emitted as a REPLACE_ME placeholder you must replace. A restic password cannot initialize a kopia repository’s encryption.

kopia sources (perfectra1n/volsync fork)

Repository ADOPTED in place, so data and history are preserved

The fork’s mover writes a real kopia repository. The emitted Repository connects to it as-is, with the same backend and the same password, and with no create block, so the repository must already exist and a mis-parsed backend can never initialize a fresh empty one. Every existing snapshot is preserved and shows up as an origin: discovered Snapshot.

$ kubectl kopiur migrate volsync -n media --resolve-secrets --apply

What the translation does, and why it is safe to switch over:

• Identity continuity, which is the part that matters most. The fork records snapshots as <sanitized-name>@<sanitized-namespace>:/data, or under your explicit username, hostname and sourcePathOverride. Every translated SnapshotPolicy pins spec.identity and sources[0].sourcePathOverride to exactly that identity, so the next kopiur snapshot continues the same history and retention sees old and new snapshots as one series. The pinned identity is shown in the accounting, on the (fork snapshot identity) line. Check it matches kopia snapshot list before you apply.
• Secrets are referenced in place, never copied. The Repository’s encryption.passwordSecretRef points at the existing VolSync Secret’s KOPIA_PASSWORD, and for S3, whose AWS_* environment names already match, the backend auth.secretRef does too. Only key names kopia does not read get a small derived <secret>-kopiur-creds rename Secret: B2 (B2_ACCOUNT_ID and B2_APPLICATION_KEY become B2_KEY_ID and B2_KEY), legacy Azure (AZURE_ACCOUNT_KEY becomes AZURE_STORAGE_KEY), WebDAV (WEBDAV_USERNAME and WEBDAV_PASSWORD become KOPIA_WEBDAV_*), and SFTP known-hosts data.
• KOPIA_REPOSITORY URL forms all translate: s3://, gcs://, azure://, b2://, filesystem:// (where the repository PVC is inferred from moverVolumes), sftp://, webdav:// and rclone://. So do the fork’s Secret-key overrides, such as KOPIA_S3_BUCKET beating the URL bucket, AWS_S3_ENDPOINT, and *_DISABLE_TLS. Quirks are preserved rather than corrected: only s3://bucket/prefix carries a prefix, with the fork’s trailing slash. For gcs, azure and b2 the fork always ignored the URL’s path portion, so the repository is adopted at the bucket or container root and the dropped path is called out in the accounting. gdrive:// has no kopiur backend, so write that Repository by hand.
• Retention maps one-to-one: retain.latest becomes keepLatest, retain.yearly becomes keepAnnual, and the rest map by name. So do compression, parallelism (which becomes upload.maxParallelFileReads), additionalArgs (which becomes extraArgs), and the cache size limits (which become mover.cache.*).

KEEP the VolSync Secret(s)

kopiur reads the repository password, and where the names match the backend credentials too, from the original VolSync Secret, in place. When you decommission VolSync, delete its CRDs and ReplicationSources, but keep the repository Secret, or the adopted Repository loses its credentials.

Retire the fork’s KopiaMaintenance objects

kopiur manages repository maintenance itself, and takes over kopia’s maintenance ownership with kopia maintenance set --owner on its first run. A fork KopiaMaintenance left running will fight kopiur over that ownership. Delete it once the adopted repository is Ready.

A few fork fields have no kopiur equivalent. They are called out in the accounting rather than dropped silently. actions.beforeSnapshot and actions.afterSnapshot run in the fork’s mover pod, while kopiur hooks run in the workload pod, so rewrite them for that context. policyConfig raw policy files are replaced by the typed SnapshotPolicy fields. shallow restore windows have no analog; use asOf, offset or snapshotID instead.

Suggested cut-over

1. Suspend or delete the fork’s ReplicationSource, so the two operators do not snapshot at the same time, and keep its Secret.
2. Run kubectl kopiur migrate volsync -n <ns> --resolve-secrets and review the accounting, especially the pinned identity line.
3. Re-run with --apply. Wait for the Repository to reach Ready and for the old snapshots to appear: kubectl kopiur snapshots list -n <ns>.
4. Prove continuity with kubectl kopiur snapshot now --policy <name> --wait, then confirm the new snapshot lists under the same identity.
5. Delete the fork’s KopiaMaintenance objects and, when you are satisfied, the VolSync install. Do not delete the repository Secret.

Try it end-to-end

Translate a fork-kopia VolSync source into kopiur manifests, review the accounting, apply it, and confirm the repository is adopted.

Prerequisite: a fork-kopia source

This arc reads one apply-ready input, deploy/examples/tryit/volsync-source.yaml: a fork-kopia ReplicationSource using spec.kopia in media, plus the repository Secret it references. It assumes the upstream VolSync CRDs are installed and kubectl kopiur is on your PATH; see the playground setup for the install.

# A minimal fork-kopia ReplicationSource. A minimal source is fully mappable and
# passes `--strict`. `repository` names the Secret above; `spec.kopia` marks it
# as the fork mover (vs upstream `spec.restic`).
apiVersion: volsync.backube/v1alpha1
kind: ReplicationSource
metadata:
  name: media
  namespace: media
spec:
  sourcePVC: app-data
  trigger:
    schedule: "0 2 * * *"
  kopia:
    repository: media-kopia-repo
    copyMethod: Direct
    retain:
      daily: 7
      weekly: 4

Fill in the AWS_* keys and the existing repository KOPIA_PASSWORD, reusing the password the fork already initialized the repository with, then apply the input:

$ kubectl apply -f deploy/examples/tryit/volsync-source.yaml

1. Dry-run the translation. Nothing is changed, and the accounting prints on stderr:

$ kubectl kopiur migrate volsync -n media --resolve-secrets
kopia sources: existing repository reused; all snapshots and history are kept. Keep the referenced VolSync Secret(s); retire the fork's KopiaMaintenance objects.

  mapped      spec.sourcePVC -> SnapshotPolicy.spec.sources[0].pvc.name
  mapped      spec.kopia.retain -> SnapshotPolicy.spec.retention
  mapped      spec.trigger.schedule -> SnapshotSchedule.spec.schedule.cron
  ...
# (the kopiur Repository + SnapshotPolicy + SnapshotSchedule YAML on stdout)

Review the accounting before applying, especially the pinned (fork snapshot identity) line. Every field the translator reads is mapped, UNMAPPABLE or ignored, and nothing is dropped silently.

2. Apply when the accounting looks right. Fork-kopia adopts the repository in place, so --apply works in one shot with no REPLACE_ME to fill:

$ kubectl kopiur migrate volsync -n media --resolve-secrets --apply
...
applied Repository/media
applied SnapshotPolicy/media
applied SnapshotSchedule/media

3. Confirm the repository is healthy (deep) with doctor:

$ kubectl kopiur doctor -n media | grep repositories
  ok    repositories ready

4. See the adopted history. The fork’s existing snapshots show up as origin: discovered:

$ kubectl kopiur snapshots list --origin discovered -n media
NAME                          POLICY  ORIGIN      PHASE      SNAPSHOT-ID   SIZE     FILES  START                 AGE
media-20260601-020000         -       discovered  Succeeded  9f8e7d6c5b4a  4.7 GiB  982    2026-06-01T02:00:00Z  10d

Illustrative: discovered rows need a real fork repository

The --origin discovered listing above is illustrative. Those rows appear only once the catalog scan finds real snapshots in the adopted repository. Against an empty placeholder backend the table stays empty until the fork’s repository, with its history, is reachable. What appears exactly as shown is the adoption banner, the mapped and applied <kind>/<name> line formats, and the ok repositories ready doctor line.