3 include::attributes.txt[]
5 Storage pool type: `dir`
7 {pve} can use local directories or locally mounted shares for
8 storage. A directory is a file level storage, so you can store any
9 content type like virtual disk images, containers, templates, ISO images
12 NOTE: You can mount additional storages via standard linux `/etc/fstab`,
13 and then define a directory storage for that mount point. This way you
14 can use any file system supported by Linux.
16 This backend assumes that the underlying directory is POSIX
17 compatible, but nothing else. This implies that you cannot create
18 snapshots at the storage level. But there exists a workaround for VM
19 images using the `qcow2` file format, because that format supports
22 TIP: Some storage types do not support `O_DIRECT`, so you can't use
23 cache mode `none` with such storages. Simply use cache mode
26 We use a predefined directory layout to store different content types
27 into different sub-directories. This layout is used by all file level
31 [width="100%",cols="d,m",options="header"]
32 |===========================================================
34 |VM images |`images/<VMID>/`
35 |ISO images |`template/iso/`
36 |Container templates |`template/cache/`
37 |Backup files |`dump/`
38 |===========================================================
44 This backend supports all common storage properties, and adds an
45 additional property called `path` to specify the directory. This
46 needs to be an absolute file system path.
48 .Configuration Example (`/etc/pve/storage.cfg`)
56 Above configuration defines a storage pool called `backup`. That pool
57 can be used to store up to 7 backups (`maxfiles 7`) per VM. The real
58 path for the backup files is `/mnt/backup/dump/...`.
61 File naming conventions
62 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
64 This backend uses a well defined naming scheme for VM images:
66 vm-<VMID>-<NAME>.<FORMAT>
70 This specifies the owner VM.
74 This can be an arbitrary name (`ascii`) without white space. The
75 backend uses `disk-[N]` as default, where `[N]` is replaced by an
76 integer to make the name unique.
80 Specifies the image format (`raw|qcow2|vmdk`).
82 When you create a VM template, all VM images are renamed to indicate
83 that they are now read-only, and can be used as a base image for clones:
85 base-<VMID>-<NAME>.<FORMAT>
87 NOTE: Such base images are used to generate cloned images. So it is
88 important that those files are read-only, and never get modified. The
89 backend changes the access mode to `0444`, and sets the immutable flag
90 (`chattr +i`) if the storage supports that.
96 As mentioned above, most file systems do not support snapshots out
97 of the box. To workaround that problem, this backend is able to use
98 `qcow2` internal snapshot capabilities.
100 Same applies to clones. The backend uses the `qcow2` base image
101 feature to create clones.
103 .Storage features for backend `dir`
104 [width="100%",cols="m,m,3*d",options="header"]
105 |==============================================================================
106 |Content types |Image formats |Shared |Snapshots |Clones
107 |images rootdir vztempl iso backup |raw qcow2 vmdk subvol |no |qcow2 |qcow2
108 |==============================================================================
114 Please use the following command to allocate a 4GB image on storage `local`:
116 # pvesm alloc local 100 vm-100-disk10.raw 4G
117 Formatting '/var/lib/vz/images/100/vm-100-disk10.raw', fmt=raw size=4294967296
118 successfully created 'local:100/vm-100-disk10.raw'
120 NOTE: The image name must conform to above naming conventions.
122 The real file system path is shown with:
124 # pvesm path local:100/vm-100-disk10.raw
125 /var/lib/vz/images/100/vm-100-disk10.raw
127 And you can remove the image with:
129 # pvesm free local:100/vm-100-disk10.raw
137 * link:/wiki/Storage[Storage]