Persistent Volumes and Storage Classes

    A PersistentVolume (PV) is a piece of storage in the cluster that has been provisioned by an administrator or dynamically provisioned using Storage Classes. PVs are volume plugins like Volumes, but have a lifecycle independent of any individual Pod that uses the PV. PVs can be provisioned either statically or .

    A PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) is a request for storage by a user. It is similar to a Pod. Pods consume node resources and PVCs consume PV resources.

    KubeSphere supports dynamic volume provisioning based on storage classes to create PVs.

    A provides a way for administrators to describe the classes of storage they offer. Different classes might map to quality-of-service levels, or to backup policies, or to arbitrary policies determined by the cluster administrators. Each StorageClass has a provisioner that determines what volume plugin is used for provisioning PVs. This field must be specified. For which value to use, please read the official Kubernetes documentation or check with your storage administrator.

    The table below summarizes common volume plugins for various provisioners (storage systems).

    You need an account granted a role including the authorization of Cluster Management. For example, you can log in to the console as directly or create a new role with the authorization and assign it to an account.

    1. If you have enabled the with member clusters imported, you can select a specific cluster. If you have not enabled the feature, refer to the next step directly.

    2. On the Cluster Management page, navigate to Storage Classes under Storage, where you can create, update and delete a storage class.

    3. To create a storage class, click Create and enter the basic information in the pop-up window. When you finish, click Next.

    4. In KubeSphere, you can create storage classes for QingCloud-CSI, Glusterfs and Ceph RBD directly. Alternatively, you can also create customized storage classes for other storage systems based on your needs. Select a type and click Next.

      create-storage-class-storage-system

    Some settings are commonly used and shared among storage classes. You can find them as dashboard properties on the console, which are also indicated by fields or annotations in the StorageClass manifest. You can see the manifest file in YAML format by enabling Edit Mode in the top right corner. Here are property descriptions of some commonly used fields in KubeSphere.

    PropertyDescription
    Allow Volume ExpansionSpecified by allowVolumeExpansion in the manifest. When it is set to true, PVs can be configured to be expandable. For more information, see Allow Volume Expansion.
    Reclaiming PolicySpecified by reclaimPolicy in the manifest. It can be set to Delete or Retain (default). For more information, see .
    Storage SystemSpecified by provisioner in the manifest. It determines what volume plugin is used for provisioning PVs. For more information, see Provisioner.
    Supported Access ModeSpecified by metadata.annotations[storageclass.kubesphere.io/supported-access-modes] in the manifest. It tells KubeSphere which is supported.

    For other settings, you need to provide different information for different storage plugins, which, in the manifest, are always indicated under the field . They will be described in detail in the sections below. You can also refer to Parameters in the official documentation of Kubernetes.

    QingCloud CSI is a CSI plugin on Kubernetes for the storage service of QingCloud. Storage classes of QingCloud CSI can be created on the KubeSphere console.

    Prerequisites

    • QingCloud CSI can be used on both public cloud and private cloud of QingCloud. Therefore, make sure KubeSphere has been installed on either of them so that you can use cloud storage services.
    • QingCloud CSI Plugin has been installed on your KubeSphere cluster. See QingCloud-CSI Installation for more information.

    Settings

    storage-volume-qingcloud

    More storage class parameters can be seen in QingCloud-CSI user guide.

    Prerequisites

    The Glusterfs storage system has already been installed. See GlusterFS Installation Documentation for more information.

    Settings

    PropertyDescription
    resturlThe Gluster REST service/Heketi service url which provision gluster volumes on demand.
    clusteridThe ID of the cluster which will be used by Heketi when provisioning the volume.
    restauthenabledGluster REST service authentication boolean that enables authentication to the REST server.
    restuserThe Glusterfs REST service/Heketi user who has access to create volumes in the Glusterfs Trusted Pool.
    secretNamespace, secretNameThe Identification of Secret instance that contains user password to use when talking to Gluster REST service.
    gidMin, gidMaxThe minimum and maximum value of GID range for the StorageClass.
    volumetypeThe volume type and its parameters can be configured with this optional value.

    For more information about StorageClass parameters, see Glusterfs in Kubernetes Documentation.

    Ceph RBD is also an in-tree storage plugin on Kubernetes. The volume plugin is already in Kubernetes, but the storage server must be installed before you create the storage class of Ceph RBD.

    As hyperkube images were , in-tree Ceph RBD may not work without hyperkube. Nevertheless, you can use rbd provisioner as a substitute, whose format is the same as in-tree Ceph RBD. The only different parameter is provisioner (i.e Storage System on the KubeSphere console). If you want to use rbd-provisioner, the value of provisioner must be ceph.com/rbd (Input this value in Storage System in the image below). If you use in-tree Ceph RBD, the value must be kubernetes.io/rbd.

    Prerequisites

    • The Ceph server has already been installed. See Ceph Installation Documentation for more information.
    • Install the plugin if you choose to use rbd-provisioner. Community developers provide that you can use to install rbd-provisioner by helm.

    Settings

    For more information about StorageClass parameters, see .

    You can create custom storage classes for your storage systems if they are not directly supported by KubeSphere. The following example shows you how to create a storage class for NFS on the KubeSphere console.

    NFS Introduction

    NFS (Net File System) is widely used on Kubernetes with the external-provisioner volume plugin . You can create the storage class of nfs-client by clicking Custom in the image below.

    Create Custom Storage Class

    Prerequisites

    • An available NFS server.

    Common Settings

    PropertyDescription
    Storage SystemSpecified by provisioner in the manifest. If you install the storage class by charts for nfs-client, it can be cluster.local/nfs-client-nfs-client-provisioner.
    Allow Volume ExpansionSpecified by allowVolumeExpansion in the manifest. Select No.
    Reclaiming PolicySpecified by reclaimPolicy in the manifest. The value is Delete by default.
    Supported Access ModeSpecified by .metadata.annotations.storageclass.kubesphere.io/supported-access-modes in the manifest. ReadWriteOnce, ReadOnlyMany and all are selected by default.

    Parameters