CSM Installation Wizard

Starting with CSM 1.12, all deployments will use images from quay.io by default. New release images will be available on Docker Hub until CSM 1.14 (May 2025), and existing releases will remain on Docker Hub.

The Dell Container Storage Modules Installation Wizard is a webpage that generates a manifest file for installing Dell CSI Drivers and its supported CSM Modules, based on input from the user. It generates a single manifest file to install both Dell CSI Drivers and its supported CSM Modules, thereby eliminating the need to download individual Helm charts for drivers and modules. The user can enable or disable the necessary modules through the UI, and a manifest file is generated accordingly without manually editing the helm charts.

NOTE: The CSM Installation Wizard supports Helm and Operator based manifest file generation.

Supported Dell CSI Drivers

CSI Driver Version Helm Operator
CSI PowerStore 2.12.0 ✔️ ✔️
CSI PowerStore 2.11.1 ✔️ ✔️
CSI PowerStore 2.10.1 ✔️ ✔️
CSI PowerStore 2.9.1 ✔️ ✔️
CSI PowerMax 2.12.0 ✔️ ✔️
CSI PowerMax 2.11.0 ✔️ ✔️
CSI PowerMax 2.10.1 ✔️ ✔️
CSI PowerMax 2.9.1 ✔️ ✔️
CSI PowerFlex 2.12.0 ✔️ ❌
CSI PowerFlex 2.11.0 ✔️ ❌
CSI PowerFlex 2.10.1 ✔️ ❌
CSI PowerFlex 2.9.1 ✔️ ❌
CSI PowerScale 2.12.0 ✔️ ✔️
CSI PowerScale 2.11.0 ✔️ ✔️
CSI PowerScale 2.10.1 ✔️ ✔️
CSI PowerScale 2.9.1 ✔️ ✔️
CSI Unity XT 2.12.0 ✔️ ❌
CSI Unity XT 2.11.0 ✔️ ❌
CSI Unity XT 2.10.1 ✔️ ❌
CSI Unity XT 2.9.1 ✔️ ❌

NOTE: The Installation Wizard currently does not support operator-based manifest file generation for Unity XT and PowerFlex drivers.

Supported Dell CSM Modules

CSM Modules Version
CSM Observability 1.7.0+
CSM Replication 1.7.0+
CSM Resiliency 1.7.0+

Installation

  1. Open the CSM Installation Wizard.
  2. Select the Installation Type as Helm/Operator.
  3. Select the Array.
  4. Enter the Image Repository. The default value is dellemc.
  5. Select the CSM Version.
  6. Select the modules for installation. If there are module specific inputs, enter their values.
  7. If needed, modify the Controller Pods Count.
  8. If needed, select Install Controller Pods on Control Plane and/or Install Node Pods on Control Plane.
  9. Enter the Namespace. The default value is csi-<array>.
  10. Click on Generate YAML.
  11. A manifest file, values.yaml will be generated and downloaded.
  12. A section Run the following commands to install will be displayed.
  13. Run the commands displayed to install Dell CSI Driver and Modules using the generated manifest file.

Installation Using Helm Chart

Steps

NOTE: Ensure that the namespace and secrets are created before installing the Helm chart.

  1. Add the Dell Helm Charts repository.

    On your terminal, run each of the commands below:

    helm repo add dell https://dell.github.io/helm-charts
helm repo update

  2. Copy the downloaded values.yaml file.

  3. Look over all the fields in the generated values.yaml and fill in/adjust any as needed.

NOTE: The CSM Installation Wizard generates values.yaml with the minimal inputs required to install the CSM. To configure additional parameters in values.yaml, you can follow the steps outlined in PowerStore, PowerMax, PowerScale, PowerFlex, Unity XT, Observability, Replication, Resiliency.

  1. When the PowerFlex driver is installed using values generated by installation wizard, the user needs to update the secret for driver by patching the MDM keys, as follows:

    echo -n '<MDM_IPS>' | base64
kubectl patch secret vxflexos-config -n vxflexos -p "{\"data\": { \"MDM\": \"<GENERATED_BASE64>\"}}"

  2. If Observability is checked in the wizard, refer to Observability to export metrics to Prometheus and load the Grafana dashboards.

  3. If Authorization is checked in the wizard, only the sidecar is enabled. Refer to Authorization to install and configure the CSM Authorization Proxy Server.

  4. If Replication is checked in the wizard, refer to Replication on configuring communication between Kubernetes clusters.

  5. If your Kubernetes distribution doesn’t have the Volume Snapshot feature enabled, refer to this section to install the Volume Snapshot CRDs and the default snapshot controller.

  6. Install the Helm chart.

    On your terminal, run this command:

    helm install <release-name> dell/container-storage-modules -n <namespace> --version <container-storage-module chart-version> -f <values.yaml location>
Example: helm install powerstore dell/container-storage-modules -n csi-powerstore --version 1.4.0 -f values.yaml

Installation Using Operator

Steps

NOTE: Ensure that the csm-operator is installed and that the namespace, secrets, and config.yaml are created as prerequisites.

  1. Copy the downloaded values.yaml file.

  2. Look over all the fields in the generated values.yaml and fill in/adjust any as needed.

NOTE: The CSM Installation Wizard generates values.yaml with the minimal inputs required to install the CSM. To configure additional parameters in values.yaml, you can follow the steps outlined in PowerStore, PowerMax, PowerScale, Resiliency.

  1. If Observability is checked in the wizard, refer to Observability to export metrics to Prometheus and load the Grafana dashboards.

  2. If Authorization is checked in the wizard, only the sidecar is enabled. Refer to Authorization to install and configure the CSM Authorization Proxy Server.

  3. If Replication is checked in the wizard, refer to Replication for the necessary prerequisites required for this module.

  4. Install the Operator.

    On your terminal, run this command:

    kubectl create -f values.yaml
Release Notes

Release notes for CSM Installation Wizard