10 pvesm - Proxmox VE Storage Manager
16 include::pvesm.1-synopsis.adoc[]
30 The {pve} storage model is very flexible. Virtual machine images
31 can either be stored on one or several local storages, or on shared
32 storage like NFS or iSCSI (NAS, SAN). There are no limits, and you may
33 configure as many storage pools as you like. You can use all
34 storage technologies available for Debian Linux.
36 One major benefit of storing VMs on shared storage is the ability to
37 live-migrate running machines without any downtime, as all nodes in
38 the cluster have direct access to VM disk images. There is no need to
39 copy VM image data, so live migration is very fast in that case.
41 The storage library (package `libpve-storage-perl`) uses a flexible
42 plugin system to provide a common interface to all storage types. This
43 can be easily adopted to include further storage types in the future.
49 There are basically two different classes of storage types:
53 File level based storage technologies allow access to a fully featured (POSIX)
54 file system. They are in general more flexible than any Block level storage
55 (see below), and allow you to store content of any type. ZFS is probably the
56 most advanced system, and it has full support for snapshots and clones.
60 Allows to store large 'raw' images. It is usually not possible to store
61 other files (ISO, backups, ..) on such storage types. Most modern
62 block level storage implementations support snapshots and clones.
63 RADOS and GlusterFS are distributed systems, replicating storage
64 data to different nodes.
67 .Available storage types
68 [width="100%",cols="<d,1*m,4*d",options="header"]
69 |===========================================================
70 |Description |PVE type |Level |Shared|Snapshots|Stable
71 |ZFS (local) |zfspool |file |no |yes |yes
72 |Directory |dir |file |no |no^1^ |yes
73 |NFS |nfs |file |yes |no^1^ |yes
74 |CIFS |cifs |file |yes |no^1^ |yes
75 |GlusterFS |glusterfs |file |yes |no^1^ |yes
76 |CephFS |cephfs |file |yes |yes |yes
77 |LVM |lvm |block |no^2^ |no |yes
78 |LVM-thin |lvmthin |block |no |yes |yes
79 |iSCSI/kernel |iscsi |block |yes |no |yes
80 |iSCSI/libiscsi |iscsidirect |block |yes |no |yes
81 |Ceph/RBD |rbd |block |yes |yes |yes
82 |ZFS over iSCSI |zfs |block |yes |yes |yes
83 |=========================================================
85 ^1^: On file based storages, snapshots are possible with the 'qcow2' format.
87 ^2^: It is possible to use LVM on top of an iSCSI storage. That way
88 you get a `shared` LVM storage.
94 A number of storages, and the Qemu image format `qcow2`, support 'thin
95 provisioning'. With thin provisioning activated, only the blocks that
96 the guest system actually use will be written to the storage.
98 Say for instance you create a VM with a 32GB hard disk, and after
99 installing the guest system OS, the root file system of the VM contains
100 3 GB of data. In that case only 3GB are written to the storage, even
101 if the guest VM sees a 32GB hard drive. In this way thin provisioning
102 allows you to create disk images which are larger than the currently
103 available storage blocks. You can create large disk images for your
104 VMs, and when the need arises, add more disks to your storage without
105 resizing the VMs' file systems.
107 All storage types which have the ``Snapshots'' feature also support thin
110 CAUTION: If a storage runs full, all guests using volumes on that
111 storage receive IO errors. This can cause file system inconsistencies
112 and may corrupt your data. So it is advisable to avoid
113 over-provisioning of your storage resources, or carefully observe
114 free space to avoid such conditions.
117 Storage Configuration
118 ---------------------
120 All {pve} related storage configuration is stored within a single text
121 file at `/etc/pve/storage.cfg`. As this file is within `/etc/pve/`, it
122 gets automatically distributed to all cluster nodes. So all nodes
123 share the same storage configuration.
125 Sharing storage configuration makes perfect sense for shared storage,
126 because the same ``shared'' storage is accessible from all nodes. But it is
127 also useful for local storage types. In this case such local storage
128 is available on all nodes, but it is physically different and can have
129 totally different content.
135 Each storage pool has a `<type>`, and is uniquely identified by its
136 `<STORAGE_ID>`. A pool configuration looks like this:
146 The `<type>: <STORAGE_ID>` line starts the pool definition, which is then
147 followed by a list of properties. Most properties require a value. Some have
148 reasonable defaults, in which case you can omit the value.
150 To be more specific, take a look at the default storage configuration
151 after installation. It contains one special local storage pool named
152 `local`, which refers to the directory `/var/lib/vz` and is always
153 available. The {pve} installer creates additional storage entries
154 depending on the storage type chosen at installation time.
156 .Default storage configuration (`/etc/pve/storage.cfg`)
160 content iso,vztmpl,backup
162 # default image store on LVM based installation
166 content rootdir,images
168 # default image store on ZFS based installation
172 content images,rootdir
176 Common Storage Properties
177 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
179 A few storage properties are common among different storage types.
183 List of cluster node names where this storage is
184 usable/accessible. One can use this property to restrict storage
185 access to a limited set of nodes.
189 A storage can support several content types, for example virtual disk
190 images, cdrom iso images, container templates or container root
191 directories. Not all storage types support all content types. One can set
192 this property to select what this storage is used for.
200 Allow to store container data.
208 Backup files (`vzdump`).
216 Snippet files, for example guest hook scripts
220 Mark storage as shared.
224 You can use this flag to disable the storage completely.
228 Maximum number of backup files per VM. Use `0` for unlimited.
232 Default image format (`raw|qcow2|vmdk`)
235 WARNING: It is not advisable to use the same storage pool on different
236 {pve} clusters. Some storage operation need exclusive access to the
237 storage, so proper locking is required. While this is implemented
238 within a cluster, it does not work between different clusters.
244 We use a special notation to address storage data. When you allocate
245 data from a storage pool, it returns such a volume identifier. A volume
246 is identified by the `<STORAGE_ID>`, followed by a storage type
247 dependent volume name, separated by colon. A valid `<VOLUME_ID>` looks
250 local:230/example-image.raw
252 local:iso/debian-501-amd64-netinst.iso
254 local:vztmpl/debian-5.0-joomla_1.5.9-1_i386.tar.gz
256 iscsi-storage:0.0.2.scsi-14f504e46494c4500494b5042546d2d646744372d31616d61
258 To get the file system path for a `<VOLUME_ID>` use:
260 pvesm path <VOLUME_ID>
266 There exists an ownership relation for `image` type volumes. Each such
267 volume is owned by a VM or Container. For example volume
268 `local:230/example-image.raw` is owned by VM 230. Most storage
269 backends encodes this ownership information into the volume name.
271 When you remove a VM or Container, the system also removes all
272 associated volumes which are owned by that VM or Container.
275 Using the Command Line Interface
276 --------------------------------
278 It is recommended to familiarize yourself with the concept behind storage
279 pools and volume identifiers, but in real life, you are not forced to do any
280 of those low level operations on the command line. Normally,
281 allocation and removal of volumes is done by the VM and Container
284 Nevertheless, there is a command line tool called `pvesm` (``{pve}
285 Storage Manager''), which is able to perform common storage management
294 pvesm add <TYPE> <STORAGE_ID> <OPTIONS>
295 pvesm add dir <STORAGE_ID> --path <PATH>
296 pvesm add nfs <STORAGE_ID> --path <PATH> --server <SERVER> --export <EXPORT>
297 pvesm add lvm <STORAGE_ID> --vgname <VGNAME>
298 pvesm add iscsi <STORAGE_ID> --portal <HOST[:PORT]> --target <TARGET>
300 Disable storage pools
302 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --disable 1
306 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --disable 0
308 Change/set storage options
310 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> <OPTIONS>
311 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --shared 1
312 pvesm set local --format qcow2
313 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --content iso
315 Remove storage pools. This does not delete any data, and does not
316 disconnect or unmount anything. It just removes the storage
319 pvesm remove <STORAGE_ID>
323 pvesm alloc <STORAGE_ID> <VMID> <name> <size> [--format <raw|qcow2>]
325 Allocate a 4G volume in local storage. The name is auto-generated if
326 you pass an empty string as `<name>`
328 pvesm alloc local <VMID> '' 4G
332 pvesm free <VOLUME_ID>
334 WARNING: This really destroys all volume data.
340 List storage contents
342 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> [--vmid <VMID>]
344 List volumes allocated by VMID
346 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --vmid <VMID>
350 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --iso
352 List container templates
354 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --vztmpl
356 Show file system path for a volume
358 pvesm path <VOLUME_ID>
365 * link:/wiki/Storage:_Directory[Storage: Directory]
367 * link:/wiki/Storage:_GlusterFS[Storage: GlusterFS]
369 * link:/wiki/Storage:_User_Mode_iSCSI[Storage: User Mode iSCSI]
371 * link:/wiki/Storage:_iSCSI[Storage: iSCSI]
373 * link:/wiki/Storage:_LVM[Storage: LVM]
375 * link:/wiki/Storage:_LVM_Thin[Storage: LVM Thin]
377 * link:/wiki/Storage:_NFS[Storage: NFS]
379 * link:/wiki/Storage:_CIFS[Storage: CIFS]
381 * link:/wiki/Storage:_RBD[Storage: RBD]
383 * link:/wiki/Storage:_CephFS[Storage: CephFS]
385 * link:/wiki/Storage:_ZFS[Storage: ZFS]
387 * link:/wiki/Storage:_ZFS_over_iSCSI[Storage: ZFS over iSCSI]
393 // backend documentation
395 include::pve-storage-dir.adoc[]
397 include::pve-storage-nfs.adoc[]
399 include::pve-storage-cifs.adoc[]
401 include::pve-storage-glusterfs.adoc[]
403 include::pve-storage-zfspool.adoc[]
405 include::pve-storage-lvm.adoc[]
407 include::pve-storage-lvmthin.adoc[]
409 include::pve-storage-iscsi.adoc[]
411 include::pve-storage-iscsidirect.adoc[]
413 include::pve-storage-rbd.adoc[]
415 include::pve-storage-cephfs.adoc[]
420 include::pve-copyright.adoc[]