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PiVirt

Storage Architecture & Pools Guide

PiVirt provides a unified, pluggable storage subsystem supporting high-performance local image directories, thin-provisioned LVM volumes, remote iSCSI SANs, and shared OCFS2 cluster filesystems.

Storage Pools

Section titled “Storage Pools”

Local Directory Pool

Section titled “Local Directory Pool”
storage:
  pools:
    - name: "default"
      type: "dir"
      path: "/var/lib/pivirtd/images"

LVM Thin Pool

Section titled “LVM Thin Pool”
storage:
  pools:
    - name: "lvm-pool"
      type: "lvm"
      volume_group: "pivirtd-vg"
      thin_pool: "pivirtd-thin"

iSCSI Pool

Section titled “iSCSI Pool”
storage:
  pools:
    - name: "iscsi-pool"
      type: "iscsi"
      target_iqn: "iqn.2024-01.hu.pilab:storage"
      portal: "10.0.1.10:3260"

NFS Pool

Section titled “NFS Pool”
storage:
  pools:
    - name: "nfs-pool"
      type: "nfs"
      server: "nas.pilab.hu"
      export: "/exports/pivirtd"

Volume Management

Section titled “Volume Management”

Create Volume

Section titled “Create Volume”
Terminal window
pvcli storage volume create \
  --pool default \
  --name data-01 \
  --size 100Gi \
  --format qcow2

Clone Volume

Section titled “Clone Volume”
Terminal window
pvcli storage volume clone \
  --source data-01 \
  --name data-01-clone

Resize Volume

Section titled “Resize Volume”
Terminal window
pvcli storage volume resize \
  --name data-01 \
  --size 200Gi

Delete Volume

Section titled “Delete Volume”
Terminal window
pvcli storage volume delete data-01

Snapshots

Section titled “Snapshots”

Create Snapshot

Section titled “Create Snapshot”
Terminal window
pvcli storage snapshot create \
  --volume data-01 \
  --name backup-01

Restore Snapshot

Section titled “Restore Snapshot”
Terminal window
pvcli storage snapshot restore \
  --volume data-01 \
  --name backup-01

iSCSI Configuration

Section titled “iSCSI Configuration”

Target Setup

Section titled “Target Setup”
Terminal window
# Create target
pvcli storage target create \
  --iqn iqn.2024-01.hu.pilab:vm-storage \
  --alias "VM Storage Pool"


# Add LUN
pvcli storage target lun add \
  --target iqn.2024-01.hu.pilab:vm-storage \
  --lun 1 \
  --device /dev/pivirtd-vg/vm-01-disk

Initiator Setup

Section titled “Initiator Setup”
Terminal window
# Discover targets
pvcli storage initiator discover --portal 10.0.1.10:3260


# Login
pvcli storage initiator login \
  --target iqn.2024-01.hu.pilab:vm-storage \
  --portal 10.0.1.10:3260

OCFS2 Cluster Filesystem

Section titled “OCFS2 Cluster Filesystem”

Create OCFS2 Volume

Section titled “Create OCFS2 Volume”
Terminal window
pvcli storage ocfs2 create \
  --name vm-shared \
  --device /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-360050764008181c60000000000000001 \
  --cluster pivirt-cluster

Mount OCFS2

Section titled “Mount OCFS2”
Terminal window
pvcli storage ocfs2 mount \
  --name vm-shared \
  --mount-point /var/lib/pivirtd/shared

Best Practices

Section titled “Best Practices”

1. Choose Right Storage Backend

Section titled “1. Choose Right Storage Backend”
Backend Use Case Performance
Local dir Development ★★☆☆☆
LVM Production ★★★★☆
iSCSI Clustered ★★★★★
NFS Shared ★★★☆☆

2. Use Thin Provisioning

Section titled “2. Use Thin Provisioning”
storage:
  pools:
    - name: "lvm-pool"
      type: "lvm"
      volume_group: "pivirtd-vg"
      thin_pool: "pivirtd-thin"
      thin_provisioning: true

3. Enable Discard/TRIM

Section titled “3. Enable Discard/TRIM”
spec:
  disks:
    - name: root
      discard: true  # Enable TRIM

4. Monitor Storage Usage

Section titled “4. Monitor Storage Usage”
Terminal window
# Check pool usage
pvcli storage pool list


# Check volume usage
pvcli storage volume list

Troubleshooting

Section titled “Troubleshooting”

Pool Not Accessible

Section titled “Pool Not Accessible”
Terminal window
# Check pool status
pvcli storage pool get default -o yaml


# Check underlying storage
df -h /var/lib/pivirtd

iSCSI Connection Issues

Section titled “iSCSI Connection Issues”
Terminal window
# Check iscsid
systemctl status open-iscsi


# Check sessions
iscsiadm -m session -P3

OCFS2 Mount Failures

Section titled “OCFS2 Mount Failures”
Terminal window
# Check cluster status
o2cb cluster-status


# Check DLM
dlm_tool ls
Section titled “Related”
Open: Community & Dev•Professional: Production Clustering•Enterprise: Mission-Critical & HA
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