StorageOS Volume Guide

Follow the recipes on this page to create your first PVC (Persistent Volume Claim) using StorageOS. StorageOS implements dynamic provisioning, so the creation of a PVC will automatically provision a PV (PersistentVolume) that can be used to persist data written by a Pod.

Create the PersistentVolumeClaim

  1. You can find the basic examples in the StorageOS use-cases repository, in the 00-basic directory.

    git clone https://github.com/storageos/use-cases.git storageos-usecases
    cd storageos-usecases/00-basic
    

    PVC definition

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
    metadata:
      name: my-vol-1
    spec:
      storageClassName: "fast" # StorageOS StorageClass
      accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
      resources:
        requests:
          storage: 5Gi
    

    The above PVC will dynamically provision a 5GB volume using the fast StorageClass. This StorageClass was created during the StorageOS install and triggers creation of a PersistentVolume by StorageOS.

    For installations with CSI, you can create multiple StorageClasses in order to specify default labels.

    apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
    kind: StorageClass
    metadata:
      name: storageos-replicated
    provisioner: csi.storageos.com # Provisioner when using CSI
    parameters:
      csi.storage.k8s.io/fstype: ext4
      storageos.com/replicas: "1" # Enforces 1 replica for the Volume
    
      # Change the Namespace below if StorageOS doesn't run in kube-system
      csi.storage.k8s.io/node-publish-secret-namespace: kube-system       # Namespace that runs StorageOS Daemonset
      csi.storage.k8s.io/provisioner-secret-namespace: kube-system        # Namespace that runs StorageOS Daemonset
      csi.storage.k8s.io/controller-publish-secret-namespace: kube-system # Namespace that runs StorageOS Daemonset
      csi.storage.k8s.io/node-publish-secret-name: csi-node-publish-secret
      csi.storage.k8s.io/provisioner-secret-name: csi-provisioner-secret
      csi.storage.k8s.io/controller-publish-secret-name: csi-controller-publish-secret
    

    The above StorageClass has the storageos.com/replicas label set. This label tells StorageOS to create a volume with a replica. Adding StorageOS feature labels to the StorageClass ensures all volumes created with the StorageClass have the same labels. For simplicity’s sake this example will use unreplicated volumes.

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
    metadata:
      name: my-vol-1
    spec:
      storageClassName: "storageos-replicated" # Reference to the StorageClass
      accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
      resources:
        requests:
          storage: 5Gi
    

    You can also choose to add the label in the PVC definition rather than the StorageClass. The PVC definition takes precedence over the SC.

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
    metadata:
      name: my-vol-1
      labels:
          storageos.com/replicas: "1"
    spec:
      storageClassName: "fast"
      accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
      resources:
        requests:
          storage: 5Gi
    

    The above PVC has the storageos.com/replicas label set. This label tells StorageOS to add a replica for the volume that is created. For the sake of keeping this example simple an unreplicated volume will be used.

  2. Move into the examples folder and create a PVC using the PVC definition above.

    $ # from storageos-usecases/00-basic
    $ kubectl create -f ./pvc-basic.yaml
    

    You can view the PVC that you have created with the command below

    $ kubectl get pvc
    NAME         STATUS   VOLUME                                     CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS   AGE
    pvc-1     Bound    pvc-f8ffa027-e821-11e8-bc0b-0ac77ccc61fa   5Gi        RWO            fast           1m
    
  3. Create a pod that mounts the PVC created in step 2.

    $ kubectl create -f ./pod.yaml
    

    The command above creates a Pod that uses the PVC that was created in step 1.

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: Pod
    metadata:
      name: d1
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: debian
          image: debian:9-slim
          command: ["/bin/sleep"]
          args: [ "3600" ]
          volumeMounts:
            - mountPath: /mnt
              name: v1
      volumes:
        - name: v1
          persistentVolumeClaim:
            claimName: pvc-1
    

    In the Pod definition above volume v1 references the PVC created in step 2, and is mounted in the pod at /mnt. In this example a debian image is used for the container but any container image with a shell would work for this example.

  4. Confirm that the pod is up and running

    $ kubectl get pods
    NAME      READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
    d1        1/1     Running   0          1m
    
  5. Execute a shell inside the container and write some contents to a file

    $ kubectl exec -it d1 -- bash
    root@d1:/# echo "Hello World!" > /mnt/helloworld
    root@d1:/# cat /mnt/helloworld
    Hello World!
    

    By writing to /mnt inside the container, the StorageOS volume created by the PVC is being written to. If you were to kill the pod and start it again on a new node, the helloworld file would still be avaliable.

    If you wish to see more use cases with actual applications please see our Use Cases documentation.