5 include::attributes.txt[]
10 pvesm - Proxmox VE Storage Manager
16 include::pvesm.1-synopsis.adoc[]
25 include::attributes.txt[]
28 The {pve} storage model is very flexible. Virtual machine images
29 can either be stored on one or several local storages, or on shared
30 storage like NFS or iSCSI (NAS, SAN). There are no limits, and you may
31 configure as many storage pools as you like. You can use all
32 storage technologies available for Debian Linux.
34 One major benefit of storing VMs on shared storage is the ability to
35 live-migrate running machines without any downtime, as all nodes in
36 the cluster have direct access to VM disk images. There is no need to
37 copy VM image data, so live migration is very fast in that case.
39 The storage library (package 'libpve-storage-perl') uses a flexible
40 plugin system to provide a common interface to all storage types. This
41 can be easily adopted to include further storage types in future.
47 There are basically two different classes of storage types:
51 Allows to store large 'raw' images. It is usually not possible to store
52 other files (ISO, backups, ..) on such storage types. Most modern
53 block level storage implementations support snapshots and clones.
54 RADOS, Sheepdog and DRBD are distributed systems, replicating storage
55 data to different nodes.
59 They allow access to a full featured (POSIX) file system. They are
60 more flexible, and allows you to store any content type. ZFS is
61 probably the most advanced system, and it has full support for
65 .Available storage types
66 [width="100%",cols="<d,1*m,4*d",options="header"]
67 |===========================================================
68 |Description |PVE type |Level |Shared|Snapshots|Stable
69 |ZFS (local) |zfspool |file |no |yes |yes
70 |Directory |dir |file |no |no |yes
71 |NFS |nfs |file |yes |no |yes
72 |GlusterFS |glusterfs |file |yes |no |yes
73 |LVM |lvm |block |no |no |yes
74 |LVM-thin |lvmthin |block |no |yes |yes
75 |iSCSI/kernel |iscsi |block |yes |no |yes
76 |iSCSI/libiscsi |iscsidirect |block |yes |no |yes
77 |Ceph/RBD |rbd |block |yes |yes |yes
78 |Sheepdog |sheepdog |block |yes |yes |beta
79 |DRBD9 |drbd |block |yes |yes |beta
80 |ZFS over iSCSI |zfs |block |yes |yes |yes
81 |=========================================================
83 TIP: It is possible to use LVM on top of an iSCSI storage. That way
84 you get a 'shared' LVM storage.
89 A number of storages, and the Qemu image format `qcow2`, support _thin
90 provisioning_. With thin provisioning activated, only the blocks that
91 the guest system actually use will be written to the storage.
93 Say for instance you create a VM with a 32GB hard disk, and after
94 installing the guest system OS, the root filesystem of the VM contains
95 3 GB of data. In that case only 3GB are written to the storage, even
96 if the guest VM sees a 32GB hard drive. In this way thin provisioning
97 allows you to create disk images which are larger than the currently
98 available storage blocks. You can create large disk images for your
99 VMs, and when the need arises, add more disks to your storage without
100 resizing the VMs filesystems.
102 All storage types which have the 'Snapshots' feature also support thin
105 CAUTION: If a storage runs full, all guests using volumes on that
106 storage receives IO error. This can cause file system inconsistencies
107 and may corrupt your data. So it is advisable to avoid
108 over-provisioning of your storage resources, or carefully observe
109 free space to avoid such conditions.
111 Storage Configuration
112 ---------------------
114 All {pve} related storage configuration is stored within a single text
115 file at '/etc/pve/storage.cfg'. As this file is within '/etc/pve/', it
116 gets automatically distributed to all cluster nodes. So all nodes
117 share the same storage configuration.
119 Sharing storage configuration make perfect sense for shared storage,
120 because the same 'shared' storage is accessible from all nodes. But is
121 also useful for local storage types. In this case such local storage
122 is available on all nodes, but it is physically different and can have
123 totally different content.
128 Each storage pool has a `<type>`, and is uniquely identified by its `<STORAGE_ID>`. A pool configuration looks like this:
137 The `<type>: <STORAGE_ID>` line starts the pool definition, which is then
138 followed by a list of properties. Most properties have values, but some of
139 them come with reasonable default. In that case you can omit the value.
141 To be more specific, take a look at the default storage configuration
142 after installation. It contains one special local storage pool named
143 `local`, which refers to the directory '/var/lib/vz' and is always
144 available. The {pve} installer creates additional storage entries
145 depending on the storage type chosen at installation time.
147 .Default storage configuration ('/etc/pve/storage.cfg')
151 content iso,vztmpl,backup
153 # default image store on LVM based installation
157 content rootdir,images
159 # default image store on ZFS based installation
163 content images,rootdir
166 Common Storage Properties
167 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
169 A few storage properties are common among different storage types.
173 List of cluster node names where this storage is
174 usable/accessible. One can use this property to restrict storage
175 access to a limited set of nodes.
179 A storage can support several content types, for example virtual disk
180 images, cdrom iso images, container templates or container root
181 directories. Not all storage types support all content types. One can set
182 this property to select for what this storage is used for.
190 Allow to store container data.
198 Backup files ('vzdump').
206 Mark storage as shared.
210 You can use this flag to disable the storage completely.
214 Maximal number of backup files per VM. Use `0` for unlimted.
218 Default image format (`raw|qcow2|vmdk`)
221 WARNING: It is not advisable to use the same storage pool on different
222 {pve} clusters. Some storage operation need exclusive access to the
223 storage, so proper locking is required. While this is implemented
224 within a cluster, it does not work between different clusters.
230 We use a special notation to address storage data. When you allocate
231 data from a storage pool, it returns such a volume identifier. A volume
232 is identified by the `<STORAGE_ID>`, followed by a storage type
233 dependent volume name, separated by colon. A valid `<VOLUME_ID>` looks
236 local:230/example-image.raw
238 local:iso/debian-501-amd64-netinst.iso
240 local:vztmpl/debian-5.0-joomla_1.5.9-1_i386.tar.gz
242 iscsi-storage:0.0.2.scsi-14f504e46494c4500494b5042546d2d646744372d31616d61
244 To get the filesystem path for a `<VOLUME_ID>` use:
246 pvesm path <VOLUME_ID>
251 There exists an ownership relation for 'image' type volumes. Each such
252 volume is owned by a VM or Container. For example volume
253 `local:230/example-image.raw` is owned by VM 230. Most storage
254 backends encodes this ownership information into the volume name.
256 When you remove a VM or Container, the system also removes all
257 associated volumes which are owned by that VM or Container.
260 Using the Command Line Interface
261 --------------------------------
263 It is recommended to familiarize yourself with the concept behind storage
264 pools and volume identifiers, but in real life, you are not forced to do any
265 of those low level operations on the command line. Normally,
266 allocation and removal of volumes is done by the VM and Container
269 Nevertheless, there is a command line tool called 'pvesm' ({pve}
270 storage manager), which is able to perform common storage management
279 pvesm add <TYPE> <STORAGE_ID> <OPTIONS>
280 pvesm add dir <STORAGE_ID> --path <PATH>
281 pvesm add nfs <STORAGE_ID> --path <PATH> --server <SERVER> --export <EXPORT>
282 pvesm add lvm <STORAGE_ID> --vgname <VGNAME>
283 pvesm add iscsi <STORAGE_ID> --portal <HOST[:PORT]> --target <TARGET>
285 Disable storage pools
287 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --disable 1
291 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --disable 0
293 Change/set storage options
295 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> <OPTIONS>
296 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --shared 1
297 pvesm set local --format qcow2
298 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --content iso
300 Remove storage pools. This does not delete any data, and does not
301 disconnect or unmount anything. It just removes the storage
304 pvesm remove <STORAGE_ID>
308 pvesm alloc <STORAGE_ID> <VMID> <name> <size> [--format <raw|qcow2>]
310 Allocate a 4G volume in local storage. The name is auto-generated if
311 you pass an empty string as `<name>`
313 pvesm alloc local <VMID> '' 4G
317 pvesm free <VOLUME_ID>
319 WARNING: This really destroys all volume data.
325 List storage contents
327 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> [--vmid <VMID>]
329 List volumes allocated by VMID
331 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --vmid <VMID>
335 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --iso
337 List container templates
339 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --vztmpl
341 Show filesystem path for a volume
343 pvesm path <VOLUME_ID>
350 * link:/wiki/Storage:_Directory[Storage: Directory]
352 * link:/wiki/Storage:_GlusterFS[Storage: GlusterFS]
354 * link:/wiki/Storage:_User_Mode_iSCSI[Storage: User Mode iSCSI]
356 * link:/wiki/Storage:_iSCSI[Storage: iSCSI]
358 * link:/wiki/Storage:_LVM[Storage: LVM]
360 * link:/wiki/Storage:_LVM_Thin[Storage: LVM Thin]
362 * link:/wiki/Storage:_NFS[Storage: NFS]
364 * link:/wiki/Storage:_RBD[Storage: RBD]
366 * link:/wiki/Storage:_ZFS[Storage: ZFS]
373 // backend documentation
375 include::pve-storage-dir.adoc[]
377 include::pve-storage-nfs.adoc[]
379 include::pve-storage-glusterfs.adoc[]
381 include::pve-storage-zfspool.adoc[]
383 include::pve-storage-lvm.adoc[]
385 include::pve-storage-lvmthin.adoc[]
387 include::pve-storage-iscsi.adoc[]
389 include::pve-storage-iscsidirect.adoc[]
391 include::pve-storage-rbd.adoc[]
396 include::pve-copyright.adoc[]