Configuring Storage

The piraeus operator can automate some basic storage set up for LINSTOR.

Configuring storage pool creation

The piraeus operator can be used to create LINSTOR storage pools. Creation is under control of the LinstorSatelliteSet resource:

$ kubectl get LinstorSatelliteSet.piraeus.linbit.com piraeus-op-ns -o yaml
kind: LinstorSatelliteSet
metadata:
..
spec:
  ..
  storagePools:
    lvmPools:
    - name: lvm-thick
      volumeGroup: drbdpool
    lvmThinPools:
    - name: lvm-thin
      thinVolume: thinpool
      volumeGroup: drbdpool
    zfsPools:
    - name: my-linstor-zpool
      zPool: for-linstor
      thin: true

At install time

At install time, by setting the value of operator.satelliteSet.storagePools when running helm install.

First create a file with the storage configuration like:

operator:
  satelliteSet:
    storagePools:
      lvmPools:
      - name: lvm-thick
        volumeGroup: drbdpool
    ..

This file can be passed to the helm installation like this:

helm install -f <file> charts/piraeus-op

After install

On a cluster with the operator already configured (i.e. after helm install), you can edit the LinstorSatelliteSet configuration like this:

$ kubectl edit LinstorSatelliteSet.piraeus.linbit.com <satellitesetname>

The storage pool configuration can be updated like in the example above.

Preparing physical devices

By default, LINSTOR expects the referenced VolumeGroups, ThinPools and so on to be present. You can use the devicePaths: [] option to let LINSTOR automatically prepare devices for the pool. Eligible for automatic configuration are block devices that:

Are a root device (no partition)
do not contain partition information
have more than 1 GiB

Note: You need to use the actual device name, symlinks are not supported, i.e. use /dev/nvme0n1 instead of /dev/disk/by-id/nvme-eui.001b448b465c62be.

To enable automatic configuration of devices, set the devicePaths key on storagePools entries:

  storagePools:
    lvmPools:
    - name: lvm-thick
      volumeGroup: drbdpool
      devicePaths:
      - /dev/vdb
    lvmThinPools:
    - name: lvm-thin
      thinVolume: thinpool
      volumeGroup: linstor_thinpool
      devicePaths:
      - /dev/vdc
      - /dev/vdd

Currently, this method supports creation of LVM and LVMTHIN storage pools.

`lvmPools` configuration

name name of the LINSTOR storage pool. Required
volumeGroup name of the VG to create. Required
devicePaths devices to configure for this pool. Must be empty and >= 1GiB to be recognized. Optional
raidLevel LVM raid level. Optional
vdo Enable VDO (requires VDO tools in the satellite). Optional
vdoLogicalSizeKib Size of the created VG (expected to be bigger than the backing devices by using VDO). Optional
vdoSlabSizeKib Slab size for VDO. Optional

Note that a LVM configuration for Piraeus will result in volume snapshot creation being disabled. If you need volume snapshots, use LVM thin or ZFS.

`lvmThinPools` configuration

name name of the LINSTOR storage pool. Required
volumeGroup VG to use for the thin pool. If you want to use devicePaths, you must set this to "". This is required because LINSTOR does not allow configuration of the VG name when preparing devices.
thinVolume name of the thinpool. Required
devicePaths devices to configure for this pool. Must be empty and >= 1GiB to be recognized. Optional
raidLevel LVM raid level. Optional

NOTE: The volume group created by LINSTOR for LVMTHIN pools will always follow the scheme "linstor_$THINPOOL".

`zfsPools` configuration

name name of the LINSTOR storage pool. Required
zPool name of the zpool to use. Must already be present on all machines. Required
thin true to use thin provisioning, false otherwise. Required

Using `automaticStorageType` (DEPRECATED)

ALL eligible devices will be prepared according to the value of operator.satelliteSet.automaticStorageType, unless they are already prepared using the storagePools section. Devices are added to a storage pool based on the device name (i.e. all /dev/nvme1 devices will be part of the pool autopool-nvme1)

The possible values for operator.satelliteSet.automaticStorageType:

None no automatic set up (default)
LVM create a LVM (thick) storage pool
LVMTHIN create a LVM thin storage pool
ZFS create a ZFS based storage pool (UNTESTED)

Configuring Storage