6 :title: Storage: Directory
9 Storage pool type: `dir`
11 {pve} can use local directories or locally mounted shares for
12 storage. A directory is a file level storage, so you can store any
13 content type like virtual disk images, containers, templates, ISO images
16 NOTE: You can mount additional storages via standard linux `/etc/fstab`,
17 and then define a directory storage for that mount point. This way you
18 can use any file system supported by Linux.
20 This backend assumes that the underlying directory is POSIX
21 compatible, but nothing else. This implies that you cannot create
22 snapshots at the storage level. But there exists a workaround for VM
23 images using the `qcow2` file format, because that format supports
26 TIP: Some storage types do not support `O_DIRECT`, so you can't use
27 cache mode `none` with such storages. Simply use cache mode
30 We use a predefined directory layout to store different content types
31 into different sub-directories. This layout is used by all file level
35 [width="100%",cols="d,m",options="header"]
36 |===========================================================
38 |VM images |`images/<VMID>/`
39 |ISO images |`template/iso/`
40 |Container templates |`template/cache/`
41 |Backup files |`dump/`
42 |Snippets |`snippets/`
43 |===========================================================
49 This backend supports all common storage properties, and adds two
50 additional properties. The `path` property is used to specify the
51 directory. This needs to be an absolute file system path.
53 The optional `content-dirs` property allows for the default layout
54 to be changed. It consists of a comma-separated list of identifiers
55 in the following format:
59 Where `vtype` is one of the allowed content types for the storage, and
60 `path` is a path relative to the mountpoint of the storage.
62 .Configuration Example (`/etc/pve/storage.cfg`)
67 prune-backups keep-last=7
68 max-protected-backups 3
69 content-dirs backup=custom/backup/dir
72 The above configuration defines a storage pool called `backup`. That pool can be
73 used to store up to 7 regular backups (`keep-last=7`) and 3 protected backups
74 per VM. The real path for the backup files is `/mnt/backup/custom/backup/dir/...`.
76 File naming conventions
77 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
79 This backend uses a well defined naming scheme for VM images:
81 vm-<VMID>-<NAME>.<FORMAT>
85 This specifies the owner VM.
89 This can be an arbitrary name (`ascii`) without white space. The
90 backend uses `disk-[N]` as default, where `[N]` is replaced by an
91 integer to make the name unique.
95 Specifies the image format (`raw|qcow2|vmdk`).
97 When you create a VM template, all VM images are renamed to indicate
98 that they are now read-only, and can be used as a base image for clones:
100 base-<VMID>-<NAME>.<FORMAT>
102 NOTE: Such base images are used to generate cloned images. So it is
103 important that those files are read-only, and never get modified. The
104 backend changes the access mode to `0444`, and sets the immutable flag
105 (`chattr +i`) if the storage supports that.
111 As mentioned above, most file systems do not support snapshots out
112 of the box. To workaround that problem, this backend is able to use
113 `qcow2` internal snapshot capabilities.
115 Same applies to clones. The backend uses the `qcow2` base image
116 feature to create clones.
118 .Storage features for backend `dir`
119 [width="100%",cols="m,m,3*d",options="header"]
120 |==============================================================================
121 |Content types |Image formats |Shared |Snapshots |Clones
122 |images rootdir vztmpl iso backup snippets |raw qcow2 vmdk subvol |no |qcow2 |qcow2
123 |==============================================================================
129 Please use the following command to allocate a 4GB image on storage `local`:
131 # pvesm alloc local 100 vm-100-disk10.raw 4G
132 Formatting '/var/lib/vz/images/100/vm-100-disk10.raw', fmt=raw size=4294967296
133 successfully created 'local:100/vm-100-disk10.raw'
135 NOTE: The image name must conform to above naming conventions.
137 The real file system path is shown with:
139 # pvesm path local:100/vm-100-disk10.raw
140 /var/lib/vz/images/100/vm-100-disk10.raw
142 And you can remove the image with:
144 # pvesm free local:100/vm-100-disk10.raw
152 * link:/wiki/Storage[Storage]