Persistent Volumes#
A *
PersistentVolume* (PV)
is a piece of storage in the cluster that has been provisioned by an administrator or dynamically provisioned using Storage Classes. It is a resource in the cluster just like a node is a cluster resource. PVs are volume plugins like Volumes, but have a lifecycle independent of any individual Pod that uses the PV. This API object captures the details of the implementation of the storage, be that NFS, iSCSI, or a cloud-provider-specific storage system.A *
PersistentVolumeClaim* (PVC)
is a request for storage by a user. It is similar to a Pod. Pods consume node resources and PVCs consume PV resources. Pods can request specific levels of resources (CPU and Memory). Claims can requestspecific size
andaccess modes
(e.g., they can be mounted ReadWriteOnce, ReadOnlyMany or ReadWriteMany, see AccessModes).
While PersistentVolumeClaims
allow a user to consume abstract storage resources, it is common that users need PersistentVolumes
with varying properties, such as performance, for different problems. Cluster administrators need to be able to offer a variety of PersistentVolumes
that differ in more ways than size and access modes, without exposing users to the details of how those volumes are implemented. For these needs, there is the StorageClass
resource.
Lifecycle of a volume and claim#
PVs are resources in the cluster. PVCs are requests for those resources and also act as claim checks to the resource. The interaction between PVs and PVCs follows this lifecycle:
Provisioning(供应 Volume 的方法)#
There are two ways PVs may be provisioned: statically
or dynamically
.
Static#
即系手工创建 Volume
A cluster administrator creates a number of PVs. They carry the details of the real storage, which is available for use by cluster users. They exist in the Kubernetes API and are available for consumption.
Dynamic#
即系自动创建 Volume
,PVC 是通过 指定storage class
实现的。
When none of the static PVs the administrator created match a user’s PersistentVolumeClaim
, the cluster may try to dynamically provision a volume specially for the PVC
. This provisioning is based on StorageClasses: the PVC must request a storage class
and the administrator must have created and configured that class for dynamic provisioning to occur. Claims that request the class ""
effectively disable dynamic provisioning for themselves.(即系不想 PVC 自动创建 Volume,就把storageClass配置为空
)
To enable dynamic storage provisioning based on storage class, the cluster administrator needs to enable the DefaultStorageClass
admission controller on the API server. This can be done, for example, by ensuring that DefaultStorageClass
is among the comma-delimited, ordered list of values for the --enable-admission-plugins
flag of the API server component. For more information on API server command-line flags, check kube-apiserver documentation.
Binding(PVC 绑定 PV)#
A user creates, or in the case of dynamic provisioning, has already created, a PersistentVolumeClaim
with a specific amount of storage requested
and with certain access modes
. A control loop in the master watches for new PVCs, finds a matching PV (if possible), and binds them together(即系 Kubernetes 自动绑定 PV 到 PVC). If a PV was dynamically provisioned for a new PVC, the loop will always bind that PV to the PVC(如果一个 PV 是为一个 PVC而创建的,那么这个新创建的 PV 总是绑定在那个 PVC 上). Otherwise, the user will always get at least what they asked for, but the volume may be in excess of what was requested(绑定的 vol 大小可能超过要求的). Once bound, PersistentVolumeClaim
binds are exclusive, regardless of how they were bound. A PVC to PV binding is a one-to-one mapping, using a ClaimRef
which is a bi-directional binding between the PersistentVolume
and the PersistentVolumeClaim
.
Claims will remain unbound indefinitely if a matching volume does not exist. Claims will be bound as matching volumes become available. For example, a cluster provisioned with many 50Gi PVs would not match a PVC requesting 100Gi. The PVC can be bound when a 100Gi PV is added to the cluster.
Using#
Pods
use claims
as volumes. The cluster inspects the claim to find the bound volume
and mounts that volume for a Pod. For volumes that support multiple access modes, the user specifies which mode is desired when using their claim as a volume in a Pod.
Once a user has a claim and that claim is bound, the bound PV belongs to the user for as long as they need it. Users schedule Pods and access their claimed PVs by including a persistentVolumeClaim
section in a Pod’s volumes
block. See Claims As Volumes for more details on this.
Storage Object in Use Protection#
The purpose of the Storage Object in Use Protection feature is to ensure that PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs) in active use by a Pod and PersistentVolume (PVs) that are bound to PVCs are not removed from the system, as this may result in data loss.
Note: PVC is in active use by a Pod when a Pod object exists that is using the PVC.
If a user deletes a PVC in active use by a Pod, the PVC is not removed immediately. PVC removal is postponed until the PVC is no longer actively used by any Pods. Also, if an admin deletes a PV that is bound to a PVC, the PV is not removed immediately. PV removal is postponed until the PV is no longer bound to a PVC.
You can see that a PVC is protected when the PVC’s status is Terminating
and the Finalizers
list includes kubernetes.io/pvc-protection
:
kubectl describe pvc hostpath
Name: hostpath
Namespace: default
StorageClass: example-hostpath
Status: Terminating
Volume:
Labels: <none>
Annotations: volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-class=example-hostpath
volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-provisioner=example.com/hostpath
Finalizers: [kubernetes.io/pvc-protection]
...
You can see that a PV is protected when the PV’s status is Terminating
and the Finalizers
list includes kubernetes.io/pv-protection
too:
kubectl describe pv task-pv-volume
Name: task-pv-volume
Labels: type=local
Annotations: <none>
Finalizers: [kubernetes.io/pv-protection]
StorageClass: standard
Status: Terminating
Claim:
Reclaim Policy: Delete
Access Modes: RWO
Capacity: 1Gi
Message:
Source:
Type: HostPath (bare host directory volume)
Path: /tmp/data
HostPathType:
Events: <none>
Reclaiming(回收)#
When a user is done with their volume, they can delete the PVC objects from the API that allows reclamation of the resource. The reclaim policy
for a PersistentVolume
tells the cluster what to do with the volume after it has been released of its claim. Currently, volumes can either be Retained, Recycled, or Deleted.
Retain#
The Retain
reclaim policy allows for manual reclamation of the resource. When the PersistentVolumeClaim is deleted, the PersistentVolume
still exists and the volume is considered “released
”. But it is not yet available for another claim because the previous claimant(原主)’s data remains on the volume. An administrator can manually reclaim the volume with the following steps.
Delete the PersistentVolume. The associated
storage asset
in external infrastructure (such as an AWS EBS, GCE PD, Azure Disk, or Cinder volume) still exists after the PV is deleted.Manually clean up the data on the associated storage asset accordingly.
Manually delete the associated storage asset.
If you want to reuse the same storage asset, create a new PersistentVolume with the same storage asset definition.
Delete#
For volume plugins that support the Delete
reclaim policy, deletion removes both the PersistentVolume object from Kubernetes, as well as the associated storage asset
in the external infrastructure, such as an AWS EBS, GCE PD, Azure Disk, or Cinder volume. Volumes that were dynamically provisioned inherit the reclaim policy of their StorageClass, which defaults to Delete
. The administrator should configure the StorageClass according to users’ expectations; otherwise, the PV must be edited or patched after it is created. See Change the Reclaim Policy of a PersistentVolume.
Recycle#
Warning: The Recycle
reclaim policy is deprecated. Instead, the recommended approach is to use dynamic provisioning.
If supported by the underlying volume plugin, the Recycle
reclaim policy performs a basic scrub (rm -rf /thevolume/*
) on the volume and makes it available again for a new claim.
However, an administrator can configure a custom recycler Pod template using the Kubernetes controller manager command line arguments as described in the reference. The custom recycler Pod template must contain a volumes
specification, as shown in the example below:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: pv-recycler
namespace: default
spec:
restartPolicy: Never
volumes:
- name: vol
hostPath:
path: /any/path/it/will/be/replaced
containers:
- name: pv-recycler
image: "registry.k8s.io/busybox"
command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "test -e /scrub && rm -rf /scrub/..?* /scrub/.[!.]* /scrub/* && test -z \"$(ls -A /scrub)\" || exit 1"]
volumeMounts:
- name: vol
mountPath: /scrub
However, the particular path specified in the custom recycler Pod template in the volumes
part is replaced with the particular path of the volume that is being recycled.
Reserving a PersistentVolume(静态绑定 PVC 与 PV)#
The control plane can bind PersistentVolumeClaims to matching PersistentVolumes in the cluster. However, if you want a PVC to bind to a specific PV, you need to pre-bind them.
By specifying a PersistentVolume in a PersistentVolumeClaim, you declare a binding between that specific PV and PVC. If the PersistentVolume exists and has not reserved PersistentVolumeClaims through its claimRef
field, then the PersistentVolume and PersistentVolumeClaim will be bound.
The binding happens regardless of some volume matching criteria, including node affinity. The control plane still checks that storage class, access modes, and requested storage size are valid.
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
name: foo-pvc
namespace: foo
spec:
storageClassName: "" # Empty string must be explicitly set otherwise default StorageClass will be set
volumeName: foo-pv
...
This method does not guarantee any binding privileges to the PersistentVolume. If other PersistentVolumeClaims could use the PV that you specify, you first need to reserve that storage volume. Specify the relevant PersistentVolumeClaim in the claimRef
field of the PV so that other PVCs can not bind to it.
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
name: foo-pv
spec:
storageClassName: ""
claimRef:
name: foo-pvc
namespace: foo
...
This is useful if you want to consume PersistentVolumes that have their claimPolicy
set to Retain
, including cases where you are reusing an existing PV.
Expanding Persistent Volumes Claims(扩容)#
FEATURE STATE: Kubernetes v1.24 [stable]
Support for expanding PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs) is enabled by default. You can expand the following types of volumes:
azureDisk
azureFile
awsElasticBlockStore
cinder (deprecated)
flexVolume (deprecated)
gcePersistentDisk
glusterfs (deprecated)
rbd
portworxVolume
You can only expand a PVC if its storage class’s allowVolumeExpansion
field is set to true.
apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: StorageClass
metadata:
name: example-vol-default
provisioner: vendor-name.example/magicstorage
parameters:
resturl: "http://192.168.10.100:8080"
restuser: ""
secretNamespace: ""
secretName: ""
allowVolumeExpansion: true
To request a larger volume for a PVC, edit the PVC object and specify a larger size. This triggers expansion of the volume that backs the underlying PersistentVolume. A new PersistentVolume is never created to satisfy the claim. Instead, an existing volume is resized.
Warning: Directly editing the size of a PersistentVolume can prevent an automatic resize of that volume. If you edit the capacity of a PersistentVolume, and then edit the .spec
of a matching PersistentVolumeClaim to make the size of the PersistentVolumeClaim match the PersistentVolume, then no storage resize happens. The Kubernetes control plane will see that the desired state of both resources matches, conclude that the backing volume size has been manually increased and that no resize is necessary.
CSI Volume expansion#
FEATURE STATE: Kubernetes v1.24 [stable]
Support for expanding CSI volumes is enabled by default but it also requires a specific CSI driver to support volume expansion. Refer to documentation of the specific CSI driver for more information.
Resizing a volume containing a file system#
You can only resize volumes containing a file system if the file system is XFS
, Ext3
, or Ext4
.
When a volume contains a file system
, the file system
is only resized when a new Pod is using the PersistentVolumeClaim in ReadWrite
mode. File system expansion is either done when a Pod is starting up or when a Pod is running and the underlying file system supports online expansion.
Resizing an in-use PersistentVolumeClaim#
FEATURE STATE: Kubernetes v1.24 [stable]
In this case, you don’t need to delete and recreate a Pod or deployment that is using an existing PVC. Any in-use PVC automatically becomes available to its Pod as soon as its file system has been expanded. This feature has no effect on PVCs that are not in use by a Pod or deployment. You must create a Pod that uses the PVC before the expansion can complete.
Persistent Volumes(PV)#
Each PV contains a spec and status, which is the specification and status of the volume. The name of a PersistentVolume object must be a valid DNS subdomain name.
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
name: pv0003
spec:
capacity:
storage: 5Gi
volumeMode: Filesystem
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Recycle
storageClassName: slow
mountOptions:
- hard
- nfsvers=4.1
nfs:
path: /tmp
server: 172.17.0.2
Capacity#
Generally, a PV will have a specific storage capacity. This is set using the PV’s capacity
attribute. Read the glossary term Quantity to understand the units expected by capacity
.
Currently, storage size is the only resource that can be set or requested. Future attributes may include IOPS, throughput, etc.
Volume Mode#
FEATURE STATE: Kubernetes v1.18 [stable]
Kubernetes supports two volumeModes
of PersistentVolumes: Filesystem
and Block
.
volumeMode
is an optional API parameter. Filesystem
is the default mode used when volumeMode
parameter is omitted.
A volume with volumeMode: Filesystem
is mounted into Pods into a directory. If the volume is backed by a block device and the device is empty, Kubernetes creates a filesystem on the device before mounting it for the first time.
You can set the value of volumeMode
to Block
to use a volume as a raw block device. Such volume is presented into a Pod as a block device, without any filesystem on it. This mode is useful to provide a Pod the fastest possible way to access a volume, without any filesystem layer between the Pod and the volume. On the other hand, the application running in the Pod must know how to handle a raw block device. See Raw Block Volume Support for an example on how to use a volume with volumeMode: Block
in a Pod.
Access Modes#
A PersistentVolume can be mounted on a host in any way supported by the resource provider. As shown in the table below, providers will have different capabilities and each PV’s access modes are set to the specific modes supported by that particular volume. For example, NFS can support multiple read/write clients, but a specific NFS PV might be exported on the server as read-only. Each PV gets its own set of access modes describing that specific PV’s capabilities.
The access modes are:
ReadWriteOnce
the volume can be mounted as read-write by a single node. ReadWriteOnce access mode still can allow multiple pods to access the volume when the pods are running on the same node.
ReadOnlyMany
the volume can be mounted as read-only by many nodes.
ReadWriteMany
the volume can be mounted as read-write by many nodes.
ReadWriteOncePod
the volume can be mounted as read-write by a single Pod. Use ReadWriteOncePod access mode if you want to ensure that only one pod across whole cluster can read that PVC or write to it. This is only supported for CSI volumes and Kubernetes version 1.22+.
The blog article Introducing Single Pod Access Mode for PersistentVolumes covers this in more detail.
In the CLI, the access modes are abbreviated to:
RWO - ReadWriteOnce
ROX - ReadOnlyMany
RWX - ReadWriteMany
RWOP - ReadWriteOncePod
Class#
A PV can have a class, which is specified by setting the storageClassName
attribute to the name of a StorageClass. A PV of a particular class can only be bound to PVCs requesting that class. A PV with no storageClassName
has no class and can only be bound to PVCs that request no particular class.
In the past, the annotation volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-class
was used instead of the storageClassName
attribute. This annotation is still working; however, it will become fully deprecated in a future Kubernetes release.
Reclaim Policy#
Current reclaim policies are:
Retain – manual reclamation
Recycle – basic scrub (
rm -rf /thevolume/*
)Delete – associated storage asset such as AWS EBS, GCE PD, Azure Disk, or OpenStack Cinder volume is deleted
Currently, only NFS and HostPath support recycling
. AWS EBS, GCE PD, Azure Disk, and Cinder volumes support deletion.
Phase#
A volume will be in one of the following phases:
Available – a free resource that is not yet bound to a claim
Bound – the volume is bound to a claim
Released – the claim has been deleted, but the resource is not yet reclaimed by the cluster
Failed – the volume has failed its automatic reclamation
The CLI will show the name of the PVC bound to the PV.
PersistentVolumeClaims(PVC)#
Each PVC contains a spec and status, which is the specification and status of the claim. The name of a PersistentVolumeClaim object must be a valid DNS subdomain name.
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
name: myclaim
spec:
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
volumeMode: Filesystem
resources:
requests:
storage: 8Gi
storageClassName: slow
selector:
matchLabels:
release: "stable"
matchExpressions:
- {key: environment, operator: In, values: [dev]}
Access Modes#
Claims use the same conventions as volumes when requesting storage with specific access modes.
Volume Modes#
Claims use the same convention as volumes to indicate the consumption of the volume as either a filesystem or block device.
Resources#
Claims, like Pods, can request specific quantities of a resource. In this case, the request is for storage. The same resource model applies to both volumes and claims.
Selector#
Claims can specify a label selector to further filter the set of volumes. Only the volumes whose labels match the selector can be bound to the claim. The selector can consist of two fields:
matchLabels
- the volume must have a label with this valuematchExpressions
- a list of requirements made by specifying key, list of values, and operator that relates the key and values. Valid operators include In, NotIn, Exists, and DoesNotExist.
All of the requirements, from both matchLabels
and matchExpressions
, are ANDed together – they must all be satisfied in order to match.
Class#
A claim can request a particular class by specifying the name of a StorageClass using the attribute storageClassName
. Only PVs of the requested class, ones with the same storageClassName
as the PVC, can be bound to the PVC.
PVCs don’t necessarily have to request a class. A PVC with its storageClassName
set equal to ""
is always interpreted to be requesting a PV with no class, so it can only be bound to PVs with no class (no annotation or one set equal to ""
). A PVC with no storageClassName
is not quite the same and is treated differently by the cluster, depending on whether the DefaultStorageClass
admission plugin is turned on.
If the admission plugin is turned on, the administrator may specify a default StorageClass. All PVCs that have no
storageClassName
can be bound only to PVs of that default. Specifying a default StorageClass is done by setting the annotationstorageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class
equal totrue
in a StorageClass object. If the administrator does not specify a default, the cluster responds to PVC creation as if the admission plugin were turned off. If more than one default is specified, the admission plugin forbids the creation of all PVCs.If the admission plugin is turned off, there is no notion of a default StorageClass. All PVCs that have
storageClassName
set to""
can be bound only to PVs that havestorageClassName
also set to""
. However, PVCs with missingstorageClassName
can be updated later once default StorageClass becomes available. If the PVC gets updated it will no longer bind to PVs that havestorageClassName
also set to""
.
See retroactive default StorageClass assignment for more details.
Depending on installation method, a default StorageClass may be deployed to a Kubernetes cluster by addon manager during installation.
When a PVC specifies a selector
in addition to requesting a StorageClass, the requirements are ANDed together: only a PV of the requested class and with the requested labels may be bound to the PVC.
Note: Currently, a PVC with a non-empty selector
can’t have a PV dynamically provisioned for it.
In the past, the annotation volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-class
was used instead of storageClassName
attribute. This annotation is still working; however, it won’t be supported in a future Kubernetes release.
Claims As Volumes - Pod 挂载#
Pods access storage by using the claim as a volume. Claims must exist in the same namespace as the Pod using the claim. The cluster finds the claim in the Pod’s namespace and uses it to get the PersistentVolume backing the claim. The volume is then mounted to the host and into the Pod.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: mypod
spec:
containers:
- name: myfrontend
image: nginx
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: "/var/www/html"
name: mypd
volumes:
- name: mypd
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: myclaim
A Note on Namespaces#
PersistentVolumes binds are exclusive, and since PersistentVolumeClaims are namespaced objects, mounting claims with “Many” modes (ROX
, RWX
) is only possible within one namespace.
PersistentVolumes typed hostPath
#
A hostPath
PersistentVolume uses a file or directory on the Node to emulate network-attached storage. See an example of hostPath
typed volume.