Hello,
I created several VMs with my first Harvester cluster and also made backups of them. Now I have added a new Harvester cluster and would like to access the backups from the first one.
The backups are also displayed in Longhorn from the new cluster, but they are not visible in Harvester. Can I also display them in the second cluster?
Yes, you can access backups from your first Harvester cluster on your second cluster. According to the official Harvester docs (VM Backup & Restore), this feature is available as of v1.0.0.
How to restore a VM from another cluster’s backups:
The key is that both clusters must point to the same backup target (the same NFS or S3 server). Once the second cluster is configured with the same backup target, the backup controller automatically syncs the backup metadata to the new cluster.
Steps:
- Go to Advanced > Settings > backup-target on your second (new) Harvester cluster.
-
- Configure it with the exact same NFS/S3 endpoint used by your first cluster.
-
- Wait for the backup metadata to sync — the backups from the first cluster will appear in Backup & Snapshot > VM Backups on the second cluster.
-
- Select the synced VM backup and click Restore Backup to create a new VM.
- Important note about VM images (for Harvester < v1.4.0):
- If your cluster is older than v1.4.0, you must manually upload the same VM images to the new cluster with identical names and configurations before restoring. As of v1.4.0, the controller automatically syncs VM images, except when an image with the same name or display name already exists on the new cluster.
- Regarding what you see in Longhorn: Longhorn displaying the backup volumes does not automatically make them visible in Harvester’s UI — you need to configure the backup target through Harvester settings, not through Longhorn directly.
- Reference: docs.harvesterhci.io/v1.7/vm/backup-restore (section: “Restore a new VM on another Harvester cluster”)
