truenas iscsi zvol (ext4 formatted) as vm image storage

[ebricca]

I have been envisioning a move from my own kvm ubuntu setup to proxmox.

I currently have the vm images already on a seperate storage (truenas underlying 15min snapshotted zvol)
with is mounted via iscsi as block device and formatted to ext4 which is housing the raw img files for kvm
(to restore which were rare, needed some action on truenas / expose snapshot as new iscsi ro-share and a mount and copy over to live)

I am pondering if I should just keep this setup and mount it via cli (iscsi+ext4) being the same setup as I did before and then expose it as local storage in proxmox.

the suggested mount iscsi and use lvm-thin seems a like bit like overkill - but there might be benefits?
( I would have to set it up anew (copy over data) .. )

real benefit I see is if reversion can be handled completely by the hypervisor with 15min snaphots ..
(running zvol snapshots on truenas just daily as a secondary security layer)

(I guess for clean migration I would in any case have to set it first as cli (iscsi+ext4) in proxmox
and in a second step create another iscsi share for copying over the vm image files .. )

( the suggested iscsi lun images feel very weird - especially getting the image files .. and I guess they are not auto created
unless used with some proxmox - truenas integration scripts - but I am quite relucatant to grant proxmox admin access to auto generate iscsi shares
- https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/using-iscsi-lun-directly.119369/
- https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/zfs-over-iscsi-for-proxmox.96772/ )

are there other great combinations for connecting proxmox and truenas together I am not seeing?

 

[floh8]

U can use zfs over iscsi. Therefore u have snapshots in pve, thin provisioning and speed.

 

[ebricca]

U can use zfs over iscsi. Therefore u have snapshots in pve, thin provisioning and speed.

did you run "zfs over iscsi" before?
I am using as iscsi backend truenas / on enterprise ..

as I understand "zfs over iscsi" is an integration mechanic which auto controls the iscsi host (truenas) via script / ssh - "iscsi provider" option
to grant proxmox full ssh access which executes iscsiadm commands
( this by itself removes from my pov a necessary security layer - at least in an enterprise environment)

Or did you mean to just format the iscsi as zfs and then use the zfs features from the proxmox side ..

this by itself should be ok - I am a bit unsure about perfomance and load on the "child" zfs pool (residing in reality on a zvol)
- compared to lvm-thin ( currently i am on ext4 )

 

[floh8]

Pve hosts in a cluster connect each other via SSH, too. So what is your problem? Storage networks should be protected with a own security enviroment., if course.