vVols | CrashLoopBackoff

First, you really should really truly understand the docs on VMware’s CSI driver.
Cloud Native Storage Getting Started

More information can be found at my GitHub.
https://github.com/2vcps/cns-installer

First if you meet all the pre-requisites mention in the CNS documentation clone my repo:

git clone https://github.com/2vcps/cns-installer.git

Then edit the install.sh and add your credentials and vCenter information.

VCENTER="<vcenter name or IP>" 
VC_ADMIN="<vc admin>" 
VC_PASS="<vc password>" 
VC_DATACENTER="<vc datacentername>" 
VC_NETWORK="<vc vm network name>"

VMware requires all the master to be tainted this way.

MASTERS=$(kubectl get node --selector='node-role.kubernetes.io/master' -o name)
for n in $MASTERS
do
    kubectl taint nodes $n node-role.kubernetes.io/master=:NoSchedule
done
kubectl describe nodes | egrep "Taints:|Name:"

Run the installer shell script (sorry Windows users, install WLS or something)

# ./install.sh

To Remove

Remove all PVC’s created with the Storage Class.

kubectl delete pvc

Then run the cleanup script.

./uninstall.sh

You can run kubectl get all --all-namespaces to verify it is removed.

Note

If the CSI driver for vSphere does not start, the Cloud Controller may not have untainted the nodes when it initialized. I am have seen it work automatically (as designed by VMware) and also had to run this to make it work:

NODES=$(kubectl get nodes -o name)
for n in $NODES
do
    kubectl taint nodes $n node.cloudprovider.kubernetes.io/uninitialized=true:NoSchedule-
done
kubectl describe nodes | egrep "Taints:|Name:"

vVols Soon? — Pure Storage + CNS + SPBM will be awesome.

Create StorageClass for CNS

Copy and paste the URL any datastore works:

 kind: StorageClass
 apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
 metadata:
   name: cns-vvols
   annotations:
     storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class: \"false\"
 provisioner: csi.vsphere.vmware.com
 parameters:
   # storagepolicyname: \"pure-vvols\"
   DatastoreURL: \"ds:///vmfs/volumes/vvol:373bb977d8ca3de8-a41c2e2c4d1f43e6/\"
   fstype: ext4

Create a new file called cns-vvols.yaml and paste the above yaml. Now you will have the replace the **DatastoreURL** with a datastore that matches your environment. vVols is not currently “supported” but it can work with SPBM policies that point to FlashArrays and have no other policies enabled. Try it out if you like just remember it is not supported and that is why it is commented out.

While I discussed in my VMworld session this week some of the architectural decisions to be made while deploying PKS on vSphere my demo revolved around once it is up and running how to move existing data into PKS.

First, using the Pure FlashArray and vVols we are able to automate that process and quickly move data from another k8s cluster into PKS. It is not limited to that but this is the use case I started with.

Part 1 of the demo shows taking the persistent data from a deployment on and cloning it over the vVol that is created by using the vSphere Cloud Provider with PKS. vVols are particularly important because they keep the data in a native format and make copy/replication and snapshotting much easier.

Part 2 is the same process just scripted using Python and Ansible.

Demo Part 1 – Manual process of migrating data into PKS

Demo Part 2 – Using Python and Ansible to migrate data into PKS

How to automate the Migration with some Python and Ansible

The code I used is available from code.purestorage.com. Which also links to the GitHub repo https://github.com/PureStorage-OpenConnect/k8s4vvols

Category: vVols

Quickly Install Cloud Native Storage CSI Driver for vSphere 6.7

To Remove

Note

Create StorageClass for CNS

Migrate Persistent Data into PKS with Pure vVols

Demo Part 1 – Manual process of migrating data into PKS

Demo Part 2 – Using Python and Ansible to migrate data into PKS