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 future.
49 There are basically two different classes of storage types:
53 Allows to store large 'raw' images. It is usually not possible to store
54 other files (ISO, backups, ..) on such storage types. Most modern
55 block level storage implementations support snapshots and clones.
56 RADOS, Sheepdog and DRBD are distributed systems, replicating storage
57 data to different nodes.
61 They allow access to a full featured (POSIX) file system. They are
62 more flexible, and allows you to store any content type. ZFS is
63 probably the most advanced system, and it has full support for
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 |yes
73 |NFS |nfs |file |yes |no |yes
74 |GlusterFS |glusterfs |file |yes |no |yes
75 |LVM |lvm |block |no |no |yes
76 |LVM-thin |lvmthin |block |no |yes |yes
77 |iSCSI/kernel |iscsi |block |yes |no |yes
78 |iSCSI/libiscsi |iscsidirect |block |yes |no |yes
79 |Ceph/RBD |rbd |block |yes |yes |yes
80 |Sheepdog |sheepdog |block |yes |yes |beta
81 |DRBD9 |drbd |block |yes |yes |beta
82 |ZFS over iSCSI |zfs |block |yes |yes |yes
83 |=========================================================
85 TIP: It is possible to use LVM on top of an iSCSI storage. That way
86 you get a `shared` LVM storage.
92 A number of storages, and the Qemu image format `qcow2`, support 'thin
93 provisioning'. With thin provisioning activated, only the blocks that
94 the guest system actually use will be written to the storage.
96 Say for instance you create a VM with a 32GB hard disk, and after
97 installing the guest system OS, the root file system of the VM contains
98 3 GB of data. In that case only 3GB are written to the storage, even
99 if the guest VM sees a 32GB hard drive. In this way thin provisioning
100 allows you to create disk images which are larger than the currently
101 available storage blocks. You can create large disk images for your
102 VMs, and when the need arises, add more disks to your storage without
103 resizing the VMs' file systems.
105 All storage types which have the ``Snapshots'' feature also support thin
108 CAUTION: If a storage runs full, all guests using volumes on that
109 storage receives IO error. This can cause file system inconsistencies
110 and may corrupt your data. So it is advisable to avoid
111 over-provisioning of your storage resources, or carefully observe
112 free space to avoid such conditions.
115 Storage Configuration
116 ---------------------
118 All {pve} related storage configuration is stored within a single text
119 file at `/etc/pve/storage.cfg`. As this file is within `/etc/pve/`, it
120 gets automatically distributed to all cluster nodes. So all nodes
121 share the same storage configuration.
123 Sharing storage configuration make perfect sense for shared storage,
124 because the same ``shared'' storage is accessible from all nodes. But is
125 also useful for local storage types. In this case such local storage
126 is available on all nodes, but it is physically different and can have
127 totally different content.
133 Each storage pool has a `<type>`, and is uniquely identified by its
134 `<STORAGE_ID>`. A pool configuration looks like this:
143 The `<type>: <STORAGE_ID>` line starts the pool definition, which is then
144 followed by a list of properties. Most properties have values, but some of
145 them come with reasonable default. In that case you can omit the value.
147 To be more specific, take a look at the default storage configuration
148 after installation. It contains one special local storage pool named
149 `local`, which refers to the directory `/var/lib/vz` and is always
150 available. The {pve} installer creates additional storage entries
151 depending on the storage type chosen at installation time.
153 .Default storage configuration (`/etc/pve/storage.cfg`)
157 content iso,vztmpl,backup
159 # default image store on LVM based installation
163 content rootdir,images
165 # default image store on ZFS based installation
169 content images,rootdir
173 Common Storage Properties
174 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
176 A few storage properties are common among different storage types.
180 List of cluster node names where this storage is
181 usable/accessible. One can use this property to restrict storage
182 access to a limited set of nodes.
186 A storage can support several content types, for example virtual disk
187 images, cdrom iso images, container templates or container root
188 directories. Not all storage types support all content types. One can set
189 this property to select for what this storage is used for.
197 Allow to store container data.
205 Backup files (`vzdump`).
213 Mark storage as shared.
217 You can use this flag to disable the storage completely.
221 Maximum number of backup files per VM. Use `0` for unlimited.
225 Default image format (`raw|qcow2|vmdk`)
228 WARNING: It is not advisable to use the same storage pool on different
229 {pve} clusters. Some storage operation need exclusive access to the
230 storage, so proper locking is required. While this is implemented
231 within a cluster, it does not work between different clusters.
237 We use a special notation to address storage data. When you allocate
238 data from a storage pool, it returns such a volume identifier. A volume
239 is identified by the `<STORAGE_ID>`, followed by a storage type
240 dependent volume name, separated by colon. A valid `<VOLUME_ID>` looks
243 local:230/example-image.raw
245 local:iso/debian-501-amd64-netinst.iso
247 local:vztmpl/debian-5.0-joomla_1.5.9-1_i386.tar.gz
249 iscsi-storage:0.0.2.scsi-14f504e46494c4500494b5042546d2d646744372d31616d61
251 To get the file system path for a `<VOLUME_ID>` use:
253 pvesm path <VOLUME_ID>
259 There exists an ownership relation for `image` type volumes. Each such
260 volume is owned by a VM or Container. For example volume
261 `local:230/example-image.raw` is owned by VM 230. Most storage
262 backends encodes this ownership information into the volume name.
264 When you remove a VM or Container, the system also removes all
265 associated volumes which are owned by that VM or Container.
268 Using the Command Line Interface
269 --------------------------------
271 It is recommended to familiarize yourself with the concept behind storage
272 pools and volume identifiers, but in real life, you are not forced to do any
273 of those low level operations on the command line. Normally,
274 allocation and removal of volumes is done by the VM and Container
277 Nevertheless, there is a command line tool called `pvesm` (``{pve}
278 Storage Manager''), which is able to perform common storage management
287 pvesm add <TYPE> <STORAGE_ID> <OPTIONS>
288 pvesm add dir <STORAGE_ID> --path <PATH>
289 pvesm add nfs <STORAGE_ID> --path <PATH> --server <SERVER> --export <EXPORT>
290 pvesm add lvm <STORAGE_ID> --vgname <VGNAME>
291 pvesm add iscsi <STORAGE_ID> --portal <HOST[:PORT]> --target <TARGET>
293 Disable storage pools
295 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --disable 1
299 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --disable 0
301 Change/set storage options
303 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> <OPTIONS>
304 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --shared 1
305 pvesm set local --format qcow2
306 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --content iso
308 Remove storage pools. This does not delete any data, and does not
309 disconnect or unmount anything. It just removes the storage
312 pvesm remove <STORAGE_ID>
316 pvesm alloc <STORAGE_ID> <VMID> <name> <size> [--format <raw|qcow2>]
318 Allocate a 4G volume in local storage. The name is auto-generated if
319 you pass an empty string as `<name>`
321 pvesm alloc local <VMID> '' 4G
325 pvesm free <VOLUME_ID>
327 WARNING: This really destroys all volume data.
333 List storage contents
335 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> [--vmid <VMID>]
337 List volumes allocated by VMID
339 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --vmid <VMID>
343 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --iso
345 List container templates
347 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --vztmpl
349 Show file system path for a volume
351 pvesm path <VOLUME_ID>
358 * link:/wiki/Storage:_Directory[Storage: Directory]
360 * link:/wiki/Storage:_GlusterFS[Storage: GlusterFS]
362 * link:/wiki/Storage:_User_Mode_iSCSI[Storage: User Mode iSCSI]
364 * link:/wiki/Storage:_iSCSI[Storage: iSCSI]
366 * link:/wiki/Storage:_LVM[Storage: LVM]
368 * link:/wiki/Storage:_LVM_Thin[Storage: LVM Thin]
370 * link:/wiki/Storage:_NFS[Storage: NFS]
372 * link:/wiki/Storage:_RBD[Storage: RBD]
374 * link:/wiki/Storage:_ZFS[Storage: ZFS]
376 * link:/wiki/Storage:_ZFS_over_iSCSI[Storage: ZFS over iSCSI]
382 // backend documentation
384 include::pve-storage-dir.adoc[]
386 include::pve-storage-nfs.adoc[]
388 include::pve-storage-glusterfs.adoc[]
390 include::pve-storage-zfspool.adoc[]
392 include::pve-storage-lvm.adoc[]
394 include::pve-storage-lvmthin.adoc[]
396 include::pve-storage-iscsi.adoc[]
398 include::pve-storage-iscsidirect.adoc[]
400 include::pve-storage-rbd.adoc[]
405 include::pve-copyright.adoc[]