Enquiry on ZFS setup and resource pool sharing

[uglyxiaodi]

Dear All,
I'm new to proxmox, the more I read from proxmox , the more I'm confused.
During the installation of proxmox-ve_6.2-1, I have selected zfs Raid1. Does it mean ZFS has been create and ready to use? I would like to create share resource pool and use it for my VM.

1)Do I need to delete the partitions and re-create ZFS and setup Volume Group?
2) How do I proceed to create share resource pool with Thin provision option for VM?




root@chicago01:~# cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg
dir: local
path /var/lib/vz
content iso,vztmpl,backup

dir: ISO
path /ISO
content images,iso
shared 0

zfspool: mainstorage
pool rpool
content images,rootdir
mountpoint /rpool
sparse 1

root@chicago01:~# zpool status
pool: rpool
state: ONLINE
scan: none requested
config:

NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
rpool ONLINE 0 0 0
mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-KINGSTON_SA400S37240G_50026B76841C9867-part3 ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-KINGSTON_SA400S37240G_50026B7683B38BD7-part3 ONLINE 0 0 0
ata-KINGSTON_SA400S37240G_50026B7683B38E5E-part3 ONLINE 0 0 0

errors: No known data errors
root@chicago01:~# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
rpool 3.39G 212G 104K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 3.38G 212G 96K /rpool/ROOT
rpool/ROOT/pve-1 3.38G 212G 3.38G /
rpool/data 96K 212G 96K /rpool/data


many thanks in advance for your guidance to the right path.

 

[Dunuin]

Dear All,
I'm new to proxmox, the more I read from proxmox , the more I'm confused.
During the installation of proxmox-ve_6.2-1, I have selected zfs Raid1. Does it mean ZFS has been create and ready to use?

Yes, then proxmox is installed to a ZFS pool and should be ready to use.

1)Do I need to delete the partitions and re-create ZFS and setup Volume Group?

There are no volume groups. If you use ZFS you dont use LVM.

2) How do I proceed to create share resource pool with Thin provision option for VM?

If you want a shared folder inside your VMs you need to use CLI to setup NFS or SMB server so your proxmox host itself works like a NAS. Proxmox can't do that by GUI. That way you can share a folder (dataset) with the VMs. ZFS should use thin provisioning by default.
Or do you mean you want to run your VMs from a shared storage like a already existsing NAS?

 

[uglyxiaodi]

Hi Dunuin,

root@chicago01:~# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
rpool 3.39G 212G 104K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 3.38G 212G 96K /rpool/ROOT
rpool/ROOT/pve-1 3.38G 212G 3.38G /
rpool/data 96K 212G 96K /rpool/data

I have 2 servers which has the same setup above.
How do i create a shared pool between these 2 servers?
1) Do I go to Datacenter -> Storage -> create ZFS and call it as mainstorage , under ZFS pool which to select from the 4 options above?, nodes I click on all, and check on thin provision .
Does this work ? moving forward the new VM created will be stored in a share resource pool from both servers?

Any guidance for reference to create share resources from these 2 servers?
both server has 3 SSD , same setup as above

many thanks in advance for your guidance to the right path.

 

[Dunuin]

ZFS can't be used as a shared storage. What you could do is using replication. That way snapshots will be used to sync all the data between two ZFS pools with the same name. That way you got two nearly identical local storages.
If you want a real shared storage ceph might be an good alternative to ZFS. Or you could use one of the two proxmox hosts as a NAS (NFS or SMB server) and add a CIFS or NFS storage to both of them so they can access the same (not mirrored) storage over the network.

 

[uglyxiaodi]

Hi Dunuin,

"If you want a real shared storage ceph might be an good alternative to ZFS. Or you could use one of the two proxmox hosts as a NAS (NFS or SMB server) and add a CIFS or NFS storage to both of them so they can access the same (not mirrored) storage over the network."

Can Ceph be setup on ZFS?
any reference links for me to understand more?

Thank you

 

[Dunuin]

Hi Dunuin,

"If you want a real shared storage ceph might be an good alternative to ZFS. Or you could use one of the two proxmox hosts as a NAS (NFS or SMB server) and add a CIFS or NFS storage to both of them so they can access the same (not mirrored) storage over the network."

Can Ceph be setup on ZFS?
any reference links for me to understand more?

Thank you

No, CEPH is also an advanced filesystem like zfs but it is not limited to a single host. With CEPH your *pool" can span several hosts and that way it can be used as a shared storage.

https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-pveceph.html