RemoteFS-GlusterFS

RemoteFS-GlusterFS

This recipe shows how to create an GlusterFS storage cluster with multiple premium storage VMs with multiple premium disks.

Configuration

Please see refer to this set of sample configuration files for this recipe.

Credentials Configuration

The credentials configuration should have management Azure Active Directory credentials defined along with a valid storage account. The management section can be supplied through environment variables instead if preferred.

FS Configuration

The remote fs configuration file requires modification. Properties to modify are:

• resource_group all resource groups should be modified to fit your scenario.
• location should be modified to the Azure region where you would like the storage cluster created. If linking against Azure Batch compute nodes, it should be in the same region as your Azure Batch account.
• managed_disks should be modified for the number, size and type of managed disks to allocate for the file server.
• storage_clusters should be modified to have a unique name instead of mystoragecluster if you prefer.
• hostname_prefix should be modified to your perferred resource name prefix.
• virtual_network should be modified for the address prefixes and subnet properties that you prefer.
• network_security should be modified for inbound network security rules to apply for SSH and external glusterfs client mounts. If no glusterfs clients external to the virtual network are needed, then the entire glusterfs security rule can be omitted.
• file_server options such as mountpoint and mount_options should be modified to your scenario. Type should not be modified from glusterfs. server_options can be modified for additional performance tuning options or changing the gluster volume name.
• vm_count should match the number of VMs to provision for GlusterFS storage cluster scale out. This must be 2 or greater for GlusterFS.
• vm_size can be modified for the file server depending upon your scenario. If using premium managed disks, then a premium VM size must be selected here.
• vm_disk_map contains all of the disks used for each VM. For glusterfs, there are at least 2 VMs, thus disks should be mapped in their respective cardinal entry.

Commands to create the GlusterFS storage cluster

After modifying the configuration files as required, you can orchestrate the entire GlusterFS shared file system with fs cluster orchestrate. The orchestrate command wraps up the disk allocation (fs disks add) and file server creation (fs cluster add) into one command. The commands can be invoked separately if desired. The following assumes the configuration files are in the current working directory.

SHIPYARD_CONFIGDIR=. ./shipyard fs cluster orchestrate mystoragecluster

This assumes that the storage cluster id is mystoragecluster. After the file server is provisioned, you can login to perform administrative tasks through SSH with:

SHIPYARD_CONFIGDIR=. ./shipyard fs cluster ssh mystoragecluster

This will SSH into the first VM in the storage cluster.

To delete the file server, you can issue:

# keep the data disks, resource group and virtual network
SHIPYARD_CONFIGDIR=. ./shipyard fs cluster del mystoragecluster

# keep the resource group and virtual network
SHIPYARD_CONFIGDIR=. ./shipyard fs cluster del mystoragecluster --delete-data-disks

# delete everything in the resource group
SHIPYARD_CONFIGDIR=. ./shipyard fs cluster del mystoragecluster --delete-resource-group

If you encounter a partial failure during creation or deletion and the virtual machine resources can no longer be enumerated, you can issue:

SHIPYARD_CONFIGDIR=. ./shipyard fs cluster del mystoragecluster --generate-from-prefix

Which would attempt to delete resources based off the fs.yaml hostname prefix (resources) specification.