Running the Velero server locally can speed up iterative development. This eliminates the need to rebuild the Velero server
image and redeploy it to the cluster with each change.
## Run Velero locally with a remote cluster
Velero runs against the Kubernetes API server as the endpoint (as per the `kubeconfig` configuration), so both the Velero server and client use the same `client-go` to communicate with Kubernetes. This means the Velero server can be run locally just as functionally as if it was running in the remote cluster.
### Prerequisites
When running Velero, you will need to ensure that you set up all of the following:
* Appropriate RBAC permissions in the cluster
* Read access for all data from the source cluster and namespaces
* Write access to the target cluster and namespaces
* Cloud provider credentials
* Read/write access to volumes
* Read/write access to object storage for backup data
* A [BackupStorageLocation][20] object definition for the Velero server
* (Optional) A [VolumeSnapshotLocation][21] object definition for the Velero server, to take PV snapshots
### 1. Install Velero
See documentation on how to install Velero in some specific providers: [Install overview][22]
### 2. Scale deployment down to zero
After you use the `velero install` command to install Velero into your cluster, you scale the Velero deployment down to 0 so it is not simultaneously being run on the remote cluster and potentially causing things to get out of sync:
* To run the server locally, use the full path according to the binary you need. Example, if you are on a Mac, and using `AWS` as a provider, this is how to run the binary you built from source using the full path: `AWS_SHARED_CREDENTIALS_FILE=<path-to-credentials-file> ./_output/bin/darwin/amd64/velero`. Alternatively, you may add the `velero` binary to your `PATH`.
* Start the server: `velero server [CLI flags]`. The following CLI flags may be useful to customize, but see `velero server --help` for full details:
*`--log-level`: set the Velero server's log level (default `info`, use `debug` for the most logging)
*`--kubeconfig`: set the path to the kubeconfig file the Velero server uses to talk to the Kubernetes apiserver (default `$KUBECONFIG`)
*`--namespace`: the set namespace where the Velero server should look for backups, schedules, restores (default `velero`)
*`--plugin-dir`: set the directory where the Velero server looks for plugins (default `/plugins`)
