Storage Providers

Connecting storage and platforms...

Overview

This page reviews the storage providers and platforms supported by libStorage.

Client/Server Configuration

Regarding the examples below, please read the provision about client/server configurations before proceeding.

Isilon

The Isilon driver registers a storage driver named isilon with the libStorage driver manager and is used to connect and manage Isilon NAS storage. The driver creates logical volumes in directories on the Isilon cluster. Volumes are exported via NFS and restricted to a single client at a time. Quotas can also be used to ensure that a volume directory doesn't exceed a specified size.

Configuration

The following is an example configuration of the Isilon driver.

isilon:
  endpoint: https://endpoint:8080
  insecure: true
  username: username
  group: groupname
  password: password
  volumePath: /libstorage
  nfsHost: nfsHost
  dataSubnet: subnet
  quotas: true

For information on the equivalent environment variable and CLI flag names please see the section on how configuration properties are transformed.

Extra Parameters

The following items are configurable specific to this driver.

volumePath represents the location under /ifs/volumes to allow volumes to be created and removed.
nfsHost is the configurable host used when mounting exports
dataSubnet is the subnet the REX-Ray driver is running on

Optional Parameters

The following items are not required, but available to this driver.

insecure defaults to false.
group defaults to the group of the user specified in the configuration. Only use this option if you need volumes to be created with a different group.
volumePath defaults to "". This will have all new volumes created directly under /ifs/volumes.
quotas defaults to false. Set to true if you have a SmartQuotas license enabled.

Activating the Driver

To activate the Isilon driver please follow the instructions for activating storage drivers, using isilon as the driver name.

Examples

Below is a full config.yml file that works with Isilon.

libstorage:
  server:
    services:
      isilon:
        driver: isilon
        isilon:
          endpoint: https://endpoint:8080
          insecure: true
          username: username
          password: password
          volumePath: /libstorage
          nfsHost: nfsHost
          dataSubnet: subnet
          quotas: true

Instructions

It is expected that the volumePath exists already within the Isilon system. This example would reflect a directory create under /ifs/volumes/libstorage for created volumes. It is not necessary to export this volume. The dataSubnet parameter is required so the Isilon driver can restrict access to attached volumes to the host that REX-Ray is running on.

If quotas are enabled, a SmartQuotas license must also be enabled on the Isilon cluster for the capacity size functionality of libStorage to work.

A SnapshotIQ license must be enabled on the Isilon cluster for the snapshot functionality of libStorage to work.

Caveats

The Isilon driver is not without its caveats:

The account used to access the Isilon cluster must be in a role with the following privileges:
- Namespace Access (ISI_PRIV_NS_IFS_ACCESS)
- Platform API (ISI_PRIV_LOGIN_PAPI)
- NFS (ISI_PRIV_NFS)
- Restore (ISI_PRIV_IFS_RESTORE)
- Quota (ISI_PRIV_QUOTA) (if quotas are enabled)
- Snapshot (ISI_PRIV_SNAPSHOT) (if snapshots are used)

ScaleIO

The ScaleIO driver registers a storage driver named scaleio with the libStorage driver manager and is used to connect and manage ScaleIO storage.

Requirements

The ScaleIO REST Gateway is required for the driver to function.
The libStorage client or application that embeds the libStorage client must reside on a host that has the SDC client installed. The command /opt/emc/scaleio/sdc/bin/drv_cfg --query_guid should be executable and should return the local SDC GUID.
The official Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is required. During testing, use of the Open Java Development Kit (JDK) resulted in unexpected errors.

Configuration

The following is an example with all possible fields configured. For a running example see the Examples section.

scaleio:
  endpoint:             https://host_ip/api
  apiVersion:           "2.0"
  insecure:             false
  useCerts:             true
  userName:             admin
  password:             mypassword
  systemID:             0
  systemName:           sysv
  protectionDomainID:   0
  protectionDomainName: corp
  storagePoolID:        0
  storagePoolName:      gold
  thinOrThick:          ThinProvisioned

Configuration Notes

The apiVersion can optionally be set here to force certain API behavior. The default is to retrieve the endpoint API, and pass this version during calls.
insecure should be set to true if you have not loaded the SSL certificates on the host. A successful wget or curl should be possible without SSL errors to the API endpoint in this case.
useCerts should only be set if you want to leverage the internal SSL certificates. This would be useful if you are deploying the REX-Ray binary on a host that does not have any certificates installed.
systemID takes priority over systemName.
protectionDomainID takes priority over protectionDomainName.
storagePoolID takes priority over storagePoolName.
thinkOrThick determines whether to provision as the default ThinProvisioned, or ThickProvisioned.

For information on the equivalent environment variable and CLI flag names please see the section on how non top-level configuration properties are transformed.

Runtime Behavior

The storageType field that is configured per volume is considered the ScaleIO Storage Pool. This can be configured by default with the storagePool setting. It is important that you create unique names for your Storage Pools on the same ScaleIO platform. Otherwise, when specifying storageType it may choose at random which protectionDomain the pool comes from.

The availabilityZone field represents the ScaleIO Protection Domain.

Configuring the Gateway

Install the EMC-ScaleIO-gateway package.
Edit the /opt/emc/scaleio/gateway/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes/gatewayUser.properties file and append the proper MDM IP addresses to the following mdm.ip.addresses= parameter.
By default the password is the same as your administrative MDM password.
Start the gateway service scaleio-gateway start.
With 1.32 we have noticed a restart of the gateway may be necessary as well after an initial install with service scaleio-gateway restart.

Activating the Driver

To activate the ScaleIO driver please follow the instructions for activating storage drivers, using scaleio as the driver name.

Troubleshooting

Verify your parameters for system, protectionDomain, and storagePool are correct.
Verify that have the ScaleIO SDC service installed with rpm -qa EMC-ScaleIO-sdc
Verify that the following command returns the local SDC GUID /opt/emc/scaleio/sdc/bin/drv_cfg --query_guid.
Ensure that you are able to open a TCP connection to the gateway with the address that you will be supplying below in the gateway_ip parameter. For example telnet gateway_ip 443 should open a successful connection. Removing the EMC-ScaleIO-gateway package and reinstalling can force re-creation of self-signed certs which may help resolve gateway problems. Also try restarting the gateway with service scaleio-gateway restart.
Ensure that you have the correct authentication credentials for the gateway. This can be done with a curl login. You should receive an authentication token in return. curl --insecure --user admin:XScaleio123 https://gw_ip:443/api/login
Please review the gateway log at /opt/emc/scaleio/gateway/logs/catalina.out for errors.

Examples

Below is a full config.yml file that works with ScaleIO.

libstorage:
  server:
    services:
      scaleio:
        driver: scaleio
        scaleio:
          endpoint: https://gateway_ip/api
          insecure: true
          userName: username
          password: password
          systemName: tenantName
          protectionDomainName: protectionDomainName
          storagePoolName: storagePoolName

VirtualBox

The VirtualBox driver registers a storage driver named virtualbox with the libStorage driver manager and is used by VirtualBox's VMs to connect and manage volumes provided by VirtualBox.

Prerequisites

In order to leverage the virtualbox driver, the libStorage client or must be located on each VM that you wish to be able to consume external volumes. The driver leverages the vboxwebserv HTTP SOAP API which is a process that must be started from the VirtualBox host (ie OS X) using vboxwebsrv -H 0.0.0.0 -v or additionally with -b for running in the background. This allows the VMs running libStorage to remotely make calls to the underlying VirtualBox application. A test for connectivity can be done with telnet virtualboxip 18083 from the VM. The virtualboxip is what you would put in the endpoint value.

Leveraging authentication for the VirtualBox webserver is optiona.. The HTTP SOAP API can have authentication disabled by running VBoxManage setproperty websrvauthlibrary null.

Hot-Plugging is required, which limits the usefulness of this driver to SATA only. Ensure that your VM has pre-created this controller and it is named SATA. Otherwise the controllerName field must be populated with the name of the controller you wish to use. The port count must be set manually as it cannot be increased when the VMs are on. A count of 30 is suggested.

VirtualBox 5.0.10+ must be used.

Configuration

The following is an example configuration of the VirtualBox driver.
The localMachineNameOrId parameter is for development use where you force libStorage to use a specific VM identity. Choose a volumePath to store the volume files or virtual disks. This path should be created ahead of time.

virtualbox:
  endpoint: http://virtualboxhost:18083
  userName: optional
  password: optional
  tls: false
  volumePath: $HOME/VirtualBox/Volumes
  controllerName: name
  localMachineNameOrId: forDevelopmentUse

For information on the equivalent environment variable and CLI flag names please see the section on how non top-level configuration properties are transformed.

Activating the Driver

To activate the VirtualBox driver please follow the instructions for activating storage drivers, using virtualbox as the driver name.

Examples

Below is a working config.yml file that works with VirtualBox.

libstorage:
  server:
    services:
      virtualbox:
        driver: virtualbox
        virtualbox:
          endpoint:       http://10.0.2.2:18083
          tls:            false
          volumePath:     $HOME/VirtualBox/Volumes
          controllerName: SATA

Caveats

Snapshot and create volume from volume functionality is not available yet with this driver.
The driver supports VirtualBox 5.0.10+

AWS EFS

The AWS EFS driver registers a storage driver named efs with the libStorage driver manager and is used to connect and manage AWS Elastic File Systems.

Requirements

AWS account
VPC - EFS can be accessed within VPC
AWS Credentials

Configuration

The following is an example with all possible fields configured. For a running example see the Examples section.

efs:
  accessKey:      XXXXXXXXXX
  secretKey:      XXXXXXXXXX
  securityGroups: sg-XXXXXXX,sg-XXXXXX0,sg-XXXXXX1
  region:         us-east-1
  tag:            test

Configuration Notes

The accessKey and secretKey configuration parameters are optional and should be used when explicit AWS credentials configuration needs to be provided. EFS driver uses official golang AWS SDK library and supports all other ways of providing access credentials, like environment variables or instance profile IAM permissions.
region represents AWS region where should be EFS provisioned. See official AWS documentation for list of supported regions.
securityGroups list of security groups attached to MountPoint instances. If no security groups are provided the default VPC security group is used.
tag is used to partition multiple services within single AWS account and is used as prefix for EFS names in format [tagprefix]/volumeName.

For information on the equivalent environment variable and CLI flag names please see the section on how non top-level configuration properties are transformed.

Runtime Behavior

AWS EFS storage driver creates one EFS FileSystem per volume and provides root of the filesystem as NFS mount point. Volumes aren't attached to instances directly but rather exposed to each subnet by creating MountPoint in each VPC subnet. When detaching volume from instance no action is taken as there isn't good way to figure out if there are other instances in same subnet using MountPoint that is being detached. There is no charge for MountPoint so they are removed only once whole volume is deleted.

By default all EFS instances are provisioned as generalPurpose performance mode. maxIO EFS type can be provisioned by providing maxIO flag as volumetype.

Its possible to mount same volume to multiple container on a single EC2 instance as well as use single volume across multiple EC2 instances at the same time.

NOTE: Each EFS FileSystem can be accessed only from single VPC at the time.

Activating the Driver

To activate the AWS EFS driver please follow the instructions for activating storage drivers, using efs as the driver name.

Troubleshooting

Make sure that AWS credentials (user or role) has following AWS permissions on libStorage server instance that will be making calls to AWS API:
elasticfilesystem:CreateFileSystem
elasticfilesystem:CreateMountTarget
ec2:DescribeSubnets
ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces
ec2:CreateNetworkInterface
elasticfilesystem:CreateTags
elasticfilesystem:DeleteFileSystem
elasticfilesystem:DeleteMountTarget
ec2:DeleteNetworkInterface
elasticfilesystem:DescribeFileSystems
elasticfilesystem:DescribeMountTargets

Examples

Below is a working config.yml file that works with AWS EFS.

libstorage:
  server:
    services:
      efs:
        driver: efs
        efs:
          accessKey:      XXXXXXXXXX
          secretKey:      XXXXXXXXXX
          securityGroups: sg-XXXXXXX,sg-XXXXXX0,sg-XXXXXX1
          region:         us-east-1
          tag:            test