ZFS filesystems for data OTHER than Proxmox guests and containers...

[Light O'Matic]

Hi. I'm trying to set my system up.
I have two sets of storage in the system.. one is SSD which just contains and boots proxmox, the other will be set up as a ZFS pool.

In the ZFS, I'd like to allocate a filesystem to store my vhd's and for my lxe's.
(I see that proxmox automatically set up local storage on the ssd for that, but I don't plan to use it)

Then, I also want another zfs filesystem for shared data files.. I do not want to create a vm and then store my data files on the VM's virtual disk.. but straight in a zfs filesystem mounted in the host os. And then I plan to make that visible to some containers, and to VM's via NFS.

So, I had read that Proxmox manages ZFS through its UI and set out to see where in the UI I should do this.. but can't seem to find that. I only see where I can specify an existing zfs filesystem as vm/lxe storage locations for proxmox.

I hesitate to go to the shell and start creating zfs filesystems NOT through proxmox.. but it seems like there's no other way to do it?
Or, is that how it's done?

And then, if that's how it's done, I suppose that proxmox won't have any monitoring or tools for my other zfs filesystems.. only the ones it is using?

Please let me know if I am understanding the situation correctly? Or are there more zfs tools in proxmox and I'm just not looking in the right place?

Thanks!

 

[geronimobb]

I created other zfs filesystems in the shell, they all appear in the UI. After all, i think the UI does the same when making zfs filesystems.

 

[guletz]

I hesitate to go to the shell and start creating zfs filesystems NOT through proxmox.. but it seems like there's no other way to do it?
Or, is that how it's done?

Hi,

All the magic things regarding zfs can happen if you go to command line

You can create any zfs dataset (who can be used like any other file system)

zfs create rpool/some-magic-dataset

After that you can add this new dataset in pmx web interface under storage menu.

Good luck/Bafta !

 

[LnxBil]

Then, I also want another zfs filesystem for shared data files.

Just to be sure of the nomenclature: Do you mean ZFS dataset or ZFS pool? Normally, you only need one pool and have everything in there. You can mix Proxmox VE datasets (e.g. bei exposing not the whole pool, but a dataset as the base for alle datasets and zvolumes PVE creates) and you everything besides this "pve parent dataset" for your stuff. I do that all the time.

However, PVE has no gui for setting up non-virtualization-related datasets, you have to do that on your own in the cli as @guletz already explained.

 

[Light O'Matic]

Thanks guys.

I have one pool right now, with two drives (1 vdev, RAID 1)
I created this pool using the proxmox UI.

I want to divide this up into multiple datasets, where some datasets are for the use of proxmox (vm's, lxe's, iso's, templates) and then others are for the use of my own applications.

I saw that proxmox didn't allow me to create datasets (except, automatically, zfs has the root dataset), so I created them using the zfs tools in the shell. That worked fine, except.. when I create a vm or lxe, proxmox does not give me the choice of these datasets but insists on putting them in the root dataset. And then, i have no way to put iso's where I want them.. but it seems to want them in local storage only, which in my case is a small ssd which does not have room for all that.. and I would prefer to keep them in zfs in a dataset for them.

So, like so:

pool/vm
pool/lxe
pool/iso
pool/data/home
pool/data/pg
pool/data/media

Etc.. where the first three would be used for proxmox and the others for other purposes. And, ideally, nothing directly in /pool (which is what proxmox seems to want to do), and nothing in the "local" storage, unless I explicitly put it there.

Can I do that?

Thanks!

PS: I should add.. that I understand that zfs datasets, even tho they LOOK just like subdirectories, are not.. and I would like to be able to have the ability to mount each of these separately in possibly different mount points than the default.. to be able to snapshot them separately or to clone them, and to set different options on them, and that's why I want control over what goes in what dataset.

 

[LnxBil]

proxmox does not give me the choice of these datasets but insists on putting them in the root dataset.

You only configured on in PVE itself, you need to change this in Datacenter -> Storage. You can add a new ZFS storage and choose another dataset as the parent. You then can use only iso storage or limited the space it uses and so on.