Be sure to have a external storage integration live on your hub before attempting to interact with external volumes.
External volumes are block or file system resources that can be attached to containers and virtual machines. For a full rundown from the platform side, check out this introduction to external volumes.
Managing External Volumes
To manage external volumes:
- Select the Infrastructure tab from the main, left-hand navigation.
- Select External Volumes tab from the sub-navigation.
Creating External Volumes
External Volumes are created from an existing external storage integration. Each volume is associated with a cluster, location, and one or more servers.
To create the external volume click the Create button at the top of the first column. This opens the external volume create wizard, which has several short pages for configuration.
Basics
On the basics step:
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Name | A user-defined name for the external volume. This will be used to identify the volume within Cycle. (Required) |
Cluster | Which cluster the server(s) to associate with are located in. |
Description | Optional text field for adding a note or description about the volume's purpose. |
Source - CEPH RBD | Create the volume from a Ceph cluster using the RADOS Block Device (RBD) interface. |
Source - SAN iSCSI | Create the volume against one or more iSCSI targets, attaching the configured LUN. |
Source - AWS EBS | (Coming soon) |
Source Config
For the source config step:
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Integration ID | Select the Ceph integration to use for this external volume. This links the volume to a configured Ceph cluster. (Required) |
Pool | The Ceph pool that contains or will contain the RBD image. (Required) |
Image | The name of the Ceph RBD image to attach or create. (Required) |
Namespace | Optional field for specifying a Ceph namespace within the selected pool. |
Snapshot | Optionally specify a snapshot name to create the volume from an existing Ceph snapshot. |
Create if Needed | When enabled, Cycle will create the RBD image automatically if it doesn't already exist. |
Volume Size | Defines the size of the Ceph RBD image to create or attach. |
Location
Location settings:
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Location | The location of the server(s) that will be associated with the volume. |
Servers | Choose the specific server within the selected location that the volume will be attachable to. |
Attachment
Attachment configurations:
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Attachment Type | Select how the external volume will be attached. Options include: File System (mounts as a formatted filesystem) or Block (mounts as a raw block device). |
Attachment Mode | Defines how containers or nodes can access the volume. (Required) |
Single Instance Writer | A single instance can attach to the volume with full read and write access. |
Single Instance Read Only | A single instance can attach to the volume in read-only mode. |
Attachment Configurations Currently in Development
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Single Node Writer | Multiple containers on the same node can attach and write to the volume. |
Single Node Read Only | Multiple containers on the same node can attach in read-only mode. |
Multi Node Writer | Multiple nodes can attach to the volume with write access. |
Multi Node Read Only | Multiple nodes can attach to the volume in read-only mode. |
The review step is just a review of the steps that have been configured through the wizard so far. When satisfied with the configuration select Create External Volume to create the volume.
Dashboard and Settings
All external volumes show up in the first column and are sorted by cluster. After selecting a volume, the options to view the dashboard and settings tabs appear.
Container Attachments
Field | Description / Value |
|---|---|
Container | Container(s) this volume is currently attached to. |
State | The state of the container. |
Mountable Destinations
Field | Description / Value |
|---|---|
Server | Servers that are currently added to the list of available mount points. |
State | The state of the server. |
Source Config
Ceph Config
Field | Description / Value |
|---|---|
Integration ID | The identifer for the config. |
Ceph Image
Field | Description / Value |
|---|---|
Pool | The Ceph storage pool that contains the RADOS Block Device (RBD) image. Pools define how data is distributed and replicated within the Ceph cluster. |
Image | The specific RBD image within the selected pool to be used as the external volume. This represents a virtual block device managed by Ceph. |
Namespace | Optional Ceph namespace within the pool used to logically group RBD images. Useful for multi-tenant or organized storage environments. |
Snapshot | Optional snapshot name of the selected RBD image. When specified, the external volume will mount from this snapshot instead of the live image. |
Attachment
Field | Description / Value |
|---|---|
Attachment Type | The attachment type (either file system or block). |
Attachment Mode | The configured attachment mode (currently either single instance reader or single instance writer). |
Location
Field | Description / Value |
|---|---|
Name | The server location for servers that are mountable destinations. |
Region | The region info for that location |
Vendor | Generally the integration name of the servers. |
Abbreviation | any abbreviation data for the location/region. |
Settings
This is where changes can be made to the external volume, access controls limited or given, and deletion.
General
Field | Description / Value |
|---|---|
Name | The display name of the external volume. Used to identify it within the platform. |
Identifier | A unique, system-level identifier for the volume. |
Description | Optional text field to describe the purpose or configuration of the volume. |
Options
Field | Description / Value |
|---|---|
Create If Needed | Automatically creates the Ceph RBD image if it doesn't already exist when attaching. |
Volume Size | Defines the capacity allocated for the RBD image in gigabytes. |
Changing Options
It may be surprising to find that the options for this volume are configurable after create. This is intended as a way to give the user the power to make changes to the options in as case where, for example, a user deletes the underlying volume on the Ceph side and it has to be recreated.
Access Controls and Delete
See access controls for more information on configuring controls.
To delete the volume, enter the name of the volume and then submit with a press to hold.