Ceph OSD on LVM logical volume.

[kwinz]

Hi,

I know it's not recommended for performance reasons. But I want to create a Ceph OSD on a node with just a single NVMe SSD.
So I kept some free space on the SSD during install.
And then created a new logical volume with `lvcreate -n vz -V 10G pve`

However that volume does not show up when trying to create a new OSD via GUI:


[edit]
pveceph osd create /dev/mapper/pve-vz
results in:
unable to get device info for '/dev/dm-2'

[edit2]:
I will try ceph-disk according to https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/pveceph-unable-to-get-device-info.44927/#post-238545

How do I add a new OSD without having a dedicated disk for it?

 

[Alwin]

How do I add a new OSD without having a dedicated disk for it?

See the ceph docs.
https://docs.ceph.com/docs/nautilus/rados/operations/add-or-rm-osds/

 

[kwinz]

So here's my little guide for everyone who wants to do this:

1. During install set maxvz to 0 to not create local storage and keep free space for Ceph on the OS drive. [GUIDE, 2.3.1 Advanced LVM Configuration Options ]
2. Setup Proxmox like usual and create a cluster
3. Install Ceph packages and do initial setup (network interfaces etc.) via GUI, also create Managers and Monitors
4. To create OSDs open a shell on each node and

4.a. bootstrap auth [4]:
ceph auth get client.bootstrap-osd > /var/lib/ceph/bootstrap-osd/ceph.keyring

4.b. Create new logical volume with the remaining free space:
lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n pve/vz

4.c. Create (= prepare and activate) the logical volume for OSD [2] [3]
ceph-volume lvm create --data pve/vz

5. That's it. Now you can keep using GUI to:

• create Metadata servers,
• by clicking on a node in the cluster in "Ceph" create a CephFS. And then add in "Datacenter-Storage" for CD images and backups. This will be mounted in /mnt/pve/cephfs/
• and in "Datacenter-Storage" add an "RDS" block device for virtual VM HDDs.

[GUIDE] https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.pdf
[2] https://docs.ceph.com/docs/master/ceph-volume/lvm/create/#ceph-volume-lvm-create
[3] https://docs.ceph.com/docs/master/ceph-volume/
[4] https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/p...ble-to-create-a-new-osd-id.55730/#post-257533

 

[Jacco]

So here's my little guide for everyone who wants to do this:

1. During install set maxvz to 0 to not create local storage and keep free space for Ceph on the OS drive. [GUIDE, 2.3.1 Advanced LVM Configuration Options ]
2. Setup Proxmox like usual and create a cluster
3. Install Ceph packages and do initial setup (network interfaces etc.) via GUI, also create Managers and Monitors
4. To create OSDs open a shell on each node and

Followed these steps with Proxmox VE 8.2.5 and Ceph 18.2.2.
My cluster setup is 6 x proxmox-node, node 1+2+3 are ceph-monitor and ceph-manager.

When trying to add an OSD on node 4+5+6, an error occurs.
These nodes will be providing OSD's, but are not monitor and/or manager.

root@proxmox05:# ceph-volume lvm create --data pve/vz
Running command: /usr/bin/ceph-authtool --gen-print-key
-->  RuntimeError: No valid ceph configuration file was loaded.

Cause of this issue is that the symlink in /etc/ceph/ceph.conf is missing. This can be fixed by adding it manually (between steps 3 and 4 in the procedure).

ln -s /etc/pve/ceph.conf /etc/ceph/ceph.conf

 

[maxermaxer]

So here's my little guide for everyone who wants to do this:

1. During install set maxvz to 0 to not create local storage and keep free space for Ceph on the OS drive. [GUIDE, 2.3.1 Advanced LVM Configuration Options ]
2. Setup Proxmox like usual and create a cluster
3. Install Ceph packages and do initial setup (network interfaces etc.) via GUI, also create Managers and Monitors
4. To create OSDs open a shell on each node and

4.a. bootstrap auth [4]:
ceph auth get client.bootstrap-osd > /var/lib/ceph/bootstrap-osd/ceph.keyring

4.b. Create new logical volume with the remaining free space:
lvcreate -l 100%FREE -n pve/vz

4.c. Create (= prepare and activate) the logical volume for OSD [2] [3]
ceph-volume lvm create --data pve/vz

5. That's it. Now you can keep using GUI to:

• create Metadata servers,
• by clicking on a node in the cluster in "Ceph" create a CephFS. And then add in "Datacenter-Storage" for CD images and backups. This will be mounted in /mnt/pve/cephfs/
• and in "Datacenter-Storage" add an "RDS" block device for virtual VM HDDs.

[GUIDE] https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.pdf
[2] https://docs.ceph.com/docs/master/ceph-volume/lvm/create/#ceph-volume-lvm-create
[3] https://docs.ceph.com/docs/master/ceph-volume/
[4] https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/p...ble-to-create-a-new-osd-id.55730/#post-257533

Thanks! I followed this guide and it is good. I am using Proxmox 8.3.5

Just want to add that in the last point:

• and in "Datacenter-Storage" add an "RDS" block device for virtual VM HDDs.

Just want to add that in the last point: In Proxmox 8.3.5 it seems there is no "RDS" under the "Add" menu.



What I actually did was to:
1. Click one of the nodes
2. Ceph - Pools
3. Create: Cephpool

Then I have the storage pool to save VMs on.



Hope this helps guys who want to implement this in 2025