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Configure a Pod to Use a PersistentVolume for Storage

This page shows how to configure a Pod to use a PersistentVolumeClaim for storage. Here is a summary of the process:

  1. A cluster administrator creates a PersistentVolume that is backed by physical storage. The administrator does not associate the volume with any Pod.

  2. A cluster user creates a PersistentVolumeClaim, which gets automatically bound to a suitable PersistentVolume.

  3. The user creates a Pod that uses the PersistentVolumeClaim as storage.

Before you begin

Create an index.html file on your Node

Open a shell to the Node in your cluster. How you open a shell depends on how you set up your cluster. For example, if you are using Minikube, you can open a shell to your Node by entering minikube ssh.

In your shell, create a /mnt/data directory:

mkdir /mnt/data

In the /mnt/data directory, create an index.html file:

echo 'Hello from Kubernetes storage' > /mnt/data/index.html

Create a PersistentVolume

In this exercise, you create a hostPath PersistentVolume. Kubernetes supports hostPath for development and testing on a single-node cluster. A hostPath PersistentVolume uses a file or directory on the Node to emulate network-attached storage.

In a production cluster, you would not use hostPath. Instead a cluster administrator would provision a network resource like a Google Compute Engine persistent disk, an NFS share, or an Amazon Elastic Block Store volume. Cluster administrators can also use StorageClasses to set up dynamic provisioning.

Here is the configuration file for the hostPath PersistentVolume:

pods/storage/pv-volume.yaml 
kind: PersistentVolume
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: task-pv-volume
  labels:
    type: local
spec:
  storageClassName: manual
  capacity:
    storage: 10Gi
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  hostPath:
    path: "/mnt/data"

The configuration file specifies that the volume is at /mnt/data on the cluster’s Node. The configuration also specifies a size of 10 gibibytes and an access mode of ReadWriteOnce, which means the volume can be mounted as read-write by a single Node. It defines the StorageClass name manual for the PersistentVolume, which will be used to bind PersistentVolumeClaim requests to this PersistentVolume.

Create the PersistentVolume:

kubectl create -f https://k8s.io/examples/pods/storage/pv-volume.yaml

View information about the PersistentVolume:

kubectl get pv task-pv-volume

The output shows that the PersistentVolume has a STATUS of Available. This means it has not yet been bound to a PersistentVolumeClaim.

NAME             CAPACITY   ACCESSMODES   RECLAIMPOLICY   STATUS      CLAIM     STORAGECLASS   REASON    AGE
task-pv-volume   10Gi       RWO           Retain          Available             manual                   4s

Create a PersistentVolumeClaim

The next step is to create a PersistentVolumeClaim. Pods use PersistentVolumeClaims to request physical storage. In this exercise, you create a PersistentVolumeClaim that requests a volume of at least three gibibytes that can provide read-write access for at least one Node.

Here is the configuration file for the PersistentVolumeClaim:

pods/storage/pv-claim.yaml 
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: task-pv-claim
spec:
  storageClassName: manual
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 3Gi

Create the PersistentVolumeClaim:

kubectl create -f https://k8s.io/examples/pods/storage/pv-claim.yaml

After you create the PersistentVolumeClaim, the Kubernetes control plane looks for a PersistentVolume that satisfies the claim’s requirements. If the control plane finds a suitable PersistentVolume with the same StorageClass, it binds the claim to the volume.

Look again at the PersistentVolume:

kubectl get pv task-pv-volume

Now the output shows a STATUS of Bound.

NAME             CAPACITY   ACCESSMODES   RECLAIMPOLICY   STATUS    CLAIM                   STORAGECLASS   REASON    AGE
task-pv-volume   10Gi       RWO           Retain          Bound     default/task-pv-claim   manual                   2m

Look at the PersistentVolumeClaim:

kubectl get pvc task-pv-claim

The output shows that the PersistentVolumeClaim is bound to your PersistentVolume, task-pv-volume.

NAME            STATUS    VOLUME           CAPACITY   ACCESSMODES   STORAGECLASS   AGE
task-pv-claim   Bound     task-pv-volume   10Gi       RWO           manual         30s

Create a Pod

The next step is to create a Pod that uses your PersistentVolumeClaim as a volume.

Here is the configuration file for the Pod:

pods/storage/pv-pod.yaml 
kind: Pod
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: task-pv-pod
spec:
  volumes:
    - name: task-pv-storage
      persistentVolumeClaim:
       claimName: task-pv-claim
  containers:
    - name: task-pv-container
      image: nginx
      ports:
        - containerPort: 80
          name: "http-server"
      volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: "/usr/share/nginx/html"
          name: task-pv-storage

Notice that the Pod’s configuration file specifies a PersistentVolumeClaim, but it does not specify a PersistentVolume. From the Pod’s point of view, the claim is a volume.

Create the Pod:

kubectl create -f https://k8s.io/examples/pods/storage/pv-pod.yaml

Verify that the Container in the Pod is running;

kubectl get pod task-pv-pod

Get a shell to the Container running in your Pod:

kubectl exec -it task-pv-pod -- /bin/bash

In your shell, verify that nginx is serving the index.html file from the hostPath volume:

root@task-pv-pod:/# apt-get update
root@task-pv-pod:/# apt-get install curl
root@task-pv-pod:/# curl localhost

The output shows the text that you wrote to the index.html file on the hostPath volume:

Hello from Kubernetes storage

Access control

Storage configured with a group ID (GID) allows writing only by Pods using the same GID. Mismatched or missing GIDs cause permission denied errors. To reduce the need for coordination with users, an administrator can annotate a PersistentVolume with a GID. Then the GID is automatically added to any Pod that uses the PersistentVolume.

Use the pv.beta.kubernetes.io/gid annotation as follows:

kind: PersistentVolume
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: pv1
  annotations:
    pv.beta.kubernetes.io/gid: "1234"

When a Pod consumes a PersistentVolume that has a GID annotation, the annotated GID is applied to all Containers in the Pod in the same way that GIDs specified in the Pod’s security context are. Every GID, whether it originates from a PersistentVolume annotation or the Pod’s specification, is applied to the first process run in each Container.

Note: When a Pod consumes a PersistentVolume, the GIDs associated with the PersistentVolume are not present on the Pod resource itself.

What's next

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