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="<2d,1*m,4*d",options="header"]
69 |===========================================================
70 |Description |Plugin type |Level |Shared|Snapshots|Stable
71 |ZFS (local) |zfspool |both^1^|no |yes |yes
72 |Directory |dir |file |no |no^2^ |yes
73 |BTRFS |btrfs |file |no |yes |technology preview
74 |NFS |nfs |file |yes |no^2^ |yes
75 |CIFS |cifs |file |yes |no^2^ |yes
76 |Proxmox Backup |pbs |both |yes |n/a |yes
77 |GlusterFS |glusterfs |file |yes |no^2^ |yes
78 |CephFS |cephfs |file |yes |yes |yes
79 |LVM |lvm |block |no^3^ |no |yes
80 |LVM-thin |lvmthin |block |no |yes |yes
81 |iSCSI/kernel |iscsi |block |yes |no |yes
82 |iSCSI/libiscsi |iscsidirect |block |yes |no |yes
83 |Ceph/RBD |rbd |block |yes |yes |yes
84 |ZFS over iSCSI |zfs |block |yes |yes |yes
85 |===========================================================
87 ^1^: Disk images for VMs are stored in ZFS volume (zvol) datasets, which provide
88 block device functionality.
90 ^2^: On file based storages, snapshots are possible with the 'qcow2' format.
92 ^3^: It is possible to use LVM on top of an iSCSI or FC-based storage.
93 That way you get a `shared` LVM storage
99 A number of storages, and the QEMU image format `qcow2`, support 'thin
100 provisioning'. With thin provisioning activated, only the blocks that
101 the guest system actually use will be written to the storage.
103 Say for instance you create a VM with a 32GB hard disk, and after
104 installing the guest system OS, the root file system of the VM contains
105 3 GB of data. In that case only 3GB are written to the storage, even
106 if the guest VM sees a 32GB hard drive. In this way thin provisioning
107 allows you to create disk images which are larger than the currently
108 available storage blocks. You can create large disk images for your
109 VMs, and when the need arises, add more disks to your storage without
110 resizing the VMs' file systems.
112 All storage types which have the ``Snapshots'' feature also support thin
115 CAUTION: If a storage runs full, all guests using volumes on that
116 storage receive IO errors. This can cause file system inconsistencies
117 and may corrupt your data. So it is advisable to avoid
118 over-provisioning of your storage resources, or carefully observe
119 free space to avoid such conditions.
122 Storage Configuration
123 ---------------------
125 All {pve} related storage configuration is stored within a single text
126 file at `/etc/pve/storage.cfg`. As this file is within `/etc/pve/`, it
127 gets automatically distributed to all cluster nodes. So all nodes
128 share the same storage configuration.
130 Sharing storage configuration makes perfect sense for shared storage,
131 because the same ``shared'' storage is accessible from all nodes. But it is
132 also useful for local storage types. In this case such local storage
133 is available on all nodes, but it is physically different and can have
134 totally different content.
140 Each storage pool has a `<type>`, and is uniquely identified by its
141 `<STORAGE_ID>`. A pool configuration looks like this:
151 The `<type>: <STORAGE_ID>` line starts the pool definition, which is then
152 followed by a list of properties. Most properties require a value. Some have
153 reasonable defaults, in which case you can omit the value.
155 To be more specific, take a look at the default storage configuration
156 after installation. It contains one special local storage pool named
157 `local`, which refers to the directory `/var/lib/vz` and is always
158 available. The {pve} installer creates additional storage entries
159 depending on the storage type chosen at installation time.
161 .Default storage configuration (`/etc/pve/storage.cfg`)
165 content iso,vztmpl,backup
167 # default image store on LVM based installation
171 content rootdir,images
173 # default image store on ZFS based installation
177 content images,rootdir
181 Common Storage Properties
182 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
184 A few storage properties are common among different storage types.
188 List of cluster node names where this storage is
189 usable/accessible. One can use this property to restrict storage
190 access to a limited set of nodes.
194 A storage can support several content types, for example virtual disk
195 images, cdrom iso images, container templates or container root
196 directories. Not all storage types support all content types. One can set
197 this property to select what this storage is used for.
205 Allow to store container data.
213 Backup files (`vzdump`).
221 Snippet files, for example guest hook scripts
225 Mark storage as shared.
229 You can use this flag to disable the storage completely.
233 Deprecated, please use `prune-backups` instead. Maximum number of backup files
234 per VM. Use `0` for unlimited.
238 Retention options for backups. For details, see
239 xref:vzdump_retention[Backup Retention].
243 Default image format (`raw|qcow2|vmdk`)
247 Preallocation mode (`off|metadata|falloc|full`) for `raw` and `qcow2` images on
248 file-based storages. The default is `metadata`, which is treated like `off` for
249 `raw` images. When using network storages in combination with large `qcow2`
250 images, using `off` can help to avoid timeouts.
252 WARNING: It is not advisable to use the same storage pool on different
253 {pve} clusters. Some storage operation need exclusive access to the
254 storage, so proper locking is required. While this is implemented
255 within a cluster, it does not work between different clusters.
261 We use a special notation to address storage data. When you allocate
262 data from a storage pool, it returns such a volume identifier. A volume
263 is identified by the `<STORAGE_ID>`, followed by a storage type
264 dependent volume name, separated by colon. A valid `<VOLUME_ID>` looks
267 local:230/example-image.raw
269 local:iso/debian-501-amd64-netinst.iso
271 local:vztmpl/debian-5.0-joomla_1.5.9-1_i386.tar.gz
273 iscsi-storage:0.0.2.scsi-14f504e46494c4500494b5042546d2d646744372d31616d61
275 To get the file system path for a `<VOLUME_ID>` use:
277 pvesm path <VOLUME_ID>
283 There exists an ownership relation for `image` type volumes. Each such
284 volume is owned by a VM or Container. For example volume
285 `local:230/example-image.raw` is owned by VM 230. Most storage
286 backends encodes this ownership information into the volume name.
288 When you remove a VM or Container, the system also removes all
289 associated volumes which are owned by that VM or Container.
292 Using the Command Line Interface
293 --------------------------------
295 It is recommended to familiarize yourself with the concept behind storage
296 pools and volume identifiers, but in real life, you are not forced to do any
297 of those low level operations on the command line. Normally,
298 allocation and removal of volumes is done by the VM and Container
301 Nevertheless, there is a command line tool called `pvesm` (``{pve}
302 Storage Manager''), which is able to perform common storage management
311 pvesm add <TYPE> <STORAGE_ID> <OPTIONS>
312 pvesm add dir <STORAGE_ID> --path <PATH>
313 pvesm add nfs <STORAGE_ID> --path <PATH> --server <SERVER> --export <EXPORT>
314 pvesm add lvm <STORAGE_ID> --vgname <VGNAME>
315 pvesm add iscsi <STORAGE_ID> --portal <HOST[:PORT]> --target <TARGET>
317 Disable storage pools
319 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --disable 1
323 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --disable 0
325 Change/set storage options
327 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> <OPTIONS>
328 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --shared 1
329 pvesm set local --format qcow2
330 pvesm set <STORAGE_ID> --content iso
332 Remove storage pools. This does not delete any data, and does not
333 disconnect or unmount anything. It just removes the storage
336 pvesm remove <STORAGE_ID>
340 pvesm alloc <STORAGE_ID> <VMID> <name> <size> [--format <raw|qcow2>]
342 Allocate a 4G volume in local storage. The name is auto-generated if
343 you pass an empty string as `<name>`
345 pvesm alloc local <VMID> '' 4G
349 pvesm free <VOLUME_ID>
351 WARNING: This really destroys all volume data.
357 List storage contents
359 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> [--vmid <VMID>]
361 List volumes allocated by VMID
363 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --vmid <VMID>
367 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --iso
369 List container templates
371 pvesm list <STORAGE_ID> --vztmpl
373 Show file system path for a volume
375 pvesm path <VOLUME_ID>
377 Exporting the volume `local:103/vm-103-disk-0.qcow2` to the file `target`.
378 This is mostly used internally with `pvesm import`.
379 The stream format qcow2+size is different to the qcow2 format.
380 Consequently, the exported file cannot simply be attached to a VM.
381 This also holds for the other formats.
383 pvesm export local:103/vm-103-disk-0.qcow2 qcow2+size target --with-snapshots 1
390 * link:/wiki/Storage:_Directory[Storage: Directory]
392 * link:/wiki/Storage:_GlusterFS[Storage: GlusterFS]
394 * link:/wiki/Storage:_User_Mode_iSCSI[Storage: User Mode iSCSI]
396 * link:/wiki/Storage:_iSCSI[Storage: iSCSI]
398 * link:/wiki/Storage:_LVM[Storage: LVM]
400 * link:/wiki/Storage:_LVM_Thin[Storage: LVM Thin]
402 * link:/wiki/Storage:_NFS[Storage: NFS]
404 * link:/wiki/Storage:_CIFS[Storage: CIFS]
406 * link:/wiki/Storage:_Proxmox_Backup_Server[Storage: Proxmox Backup Server]
408 * link:/wiki/Storage:_RBD[Storage: RBD]
410 * link:/wiki/Storage:_CephFS[Storage: CephFS]
412 * link:/wiki/Storage:_ZFS[Storage: ZFS]
414 * link:/wiki/Storage:_ZFS_over_iSCSI[Storage: ZFS over iSCSI]
420 // backend documentation
422 include::pve-storage-dir.adoc[]
424 include::pve-storage-nfs.adoc[]
426 include::pve-storage-cifs.adoc[]
428 include::pve-storage-pbs.adoc[]
430 include::pve-storage-glusterfs.adoc[]
432 include::pve-storage-zfspool.adoc[]
434 include::pve-storage-lvm.adoc[]
436 include::pve-storage-lvmthin.adoc[]
438 include::pve-storage-iscsi.adoc[]
440 include::pve-storage-iscsidirect.adoc[]
442 include::pve-storage-rbd.adoc[]
444 include::pve-storage-cephfs.adoc[]
446 include::pve-storage-btrfs.adoc[]
448 include::pve-storage-zfs.adoc[]
452 include::pve-copyright.adoc[]