Installation Guide

Installation Wizard Support Matrix Click Here

The Container Storage Modules Installation Wizard is a webpage that helps you create a manifest file to install Dell CSI Drivers and CSM Modules. Users can enable or disable modules through the UI, and it generates a single manifest file, eliminating the need to download individual Helm charts for drivers and modules.

Note:Ensure Helm 3.x, namespace, and secrets are set up before installing the Helm chart.

Generate Manifest File

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 Helm 3.x, namespace, and secrets are set up before installing the Helm chart.

• 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
  

• Copy the downloaded values.yaml file.

• 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 CSI Driver ,Observability, Replication, ,Resiliency.

• 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.

• 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 powermax dell/container-storage-modules -n csi-powermax –version 1.7.0 -f values.yaml

Volume Snapshot Requirements (Optional)

For detailed snapshot setup procedure, click here.

Install Driver

Steps

1. Clone the csi-powermax repository, using the latest release branch. This will include the Helm charts and dell-csi-helm-installer scripts.

   git clone -b v2.14.0 https://github.com/dell/csi-powermax.git
   cd ./csi-powermax
   

2. Create a namespace in which the driver will be installed.

   kubectl create namespace powermax
   

3. Create a file called secret.yaml or pick a sample that has Powermax array connection details:

   storageArrays:
     - storageArrayId: "000000000001"
       primaryEndpoint: https://primary-1.unisphe.re:8443
       backupEndpoint: https://backup-1.unisphe.re:8443
   managementServers:
     - endpoint: https://primary-1.unisphe.re:8443
       username: admin
       password: password
       skipCertificateValidation: true
       limits:
         maxActiveRead: 10
         maxActiveWrite: 10
         maxOutstandingRead: 10
         maxOutstandingWrite: 10
     - endpoint: https://backup-1.unisphe.re:8443
       username: admin2
       password: password2
       skipCertificateValidation: false
       certSecret: my-unishpere-cert-secret
   

4. Create the powermax-creds Secret.

   kubectl create secret generic powermax-creds --namespace powermax --from-file=config=secret.yaml
   

5. Download the default values.yaml file.

   cd dell-csi-helm-installer
   wget -O my-powermax-settings.yaml https://github.com/dell/helm-charts/raw/csi-powermax-2.14.0/charts/csi-powermax/values.yaml
   

6. Edit the newly created file and provide values for the following parameters.

   vi my-powermax-settings.yaml
   

Parameters

Parameter	Description	Required	Default
global	This section refers to configuration options for both CSI PowerMax Driver and Reverse Proxy	-	-
defaultCredentialsSecret	The name of the Secret, created in installation step 3, used to specify PowerMax storage arrays and their login credentials. Formerly used to provide the name of the Secret containing storage admin login credentials.	Yes	powermax-creds
useSecret	Defines if the reverseproxy and driver containers should use the Secret instead of the deprecated powermax-reverseproxy-config ConfigMap. If set to true, the contents of the Secret specified by global.defaultCredentialsSecret will be used, in the new format, to specify Unisphere for PowerMax endpoints, array IDs, and login credentials. If set to false, the deprecated powermax-reverseprpoxy-config ConfigMap will be used, and global.defaultCredentialsSecret will be used in the deprecated format to provide storage admin login credentials.	Yes	false
storageArrays	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure storage arrays. This section refers to the list of arrays managed by the driver and Reverse Proxy.	-	-
storageArrayId	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure storage arrays. This refers to PowerMax Symmetrix ID.	Yes	000000000001
endpoint	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure storage arrays. This refers to the URL of the Unisphere server managing storageArrayId. If authorization is enabled, endpoint should be the HTTPS localhost endpoint that the authorization sidecar will listen on	Yes	https://primary-1.unisphe.re:8443
backupEndpoint	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure storage arrays. This refers to the URL of the backup Unisphere server managing storageArrayId, if Reverse Proxy is installed. If authorization is enabled, backupEndpoint should be the HTTPS localhost endpoint that the authorization sidecar will listen on	Yes	https://backup-1.unisphe.re:8443
managementServers	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure management servers. This section refers to the list of configurations for Unisphere servers managing powermax arrays.	-	-
endpoint	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure management servers. This refers to the URL of the Unisphere server. If authorization is enabled, endpoint should be the HTTPS localhost endpoint that the authorization sidecar will listen on	Yes	https://primary-1.unisphe.re:8443
credentialsSecret	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure management servers. This refers to the user credentials for endpoint	Yes	primary-unisphere-secret-1
skipCertificateValidation	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure management servers. This parameter should be set to false if you want to do client-side TLS verification of Unisphere for PowerMax SSL certificates.	No	“True”
certSecret	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to specify the certSecret. The name of the secret in the same namespace containing the CA certificates of the Unisphere server.	Yes, if skipCertificateValidation is set to false	Empty
limits	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure reverse proxy limits. This refers to various limits for Reverse Proxy	No	-
maxActiveRead	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure read limits. This refers to the maximum concurrent READ request handled by the reverse proxy.	No	5
maxActiveWrite	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure write limits. This refers to the maximum concurrent WRITE request handled by the reverse proxy.	No	4
maxOutStandingRead	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure read limits. This refers to maximum queued READ request when reverse proxy receives more than maxActiveRead requests.	No	50
maxOutStandingWrite	Deprecated. Refer to installation step 3 to configure write limits. This refers to maximum queued WRITE request when reverse proxy receives more than maxActiveWrite requests.	No	50
logLevel	CSI driver log level. Allowed values: “error”, “warn”/“warning”, “info”, “debug”.	Yes	“debug”
logFormat	CSI driver log format. Allowed values: “TEXT” or “JSON”.	Yes	“TEXT”
imagePullPolicy	The default pull policy is IfNotPresent which causes the Kubelet to skip pulling an image if it already exists.	Yes	IfNotPresent
clusterPrefix	Prefix that is used during the creation of various masking-related entities (Storage Groups, Masking Views, Hosts, and Volume Identifiers) on the array. The value that you specify here must be unique. Ensure that no other CSI PowerMax driver is managing the same arrays that are configured with the same prefix. The maximum length for this prefix is three characters.	Yes	“ABC”
kubeletConfigDir	kubelet config directory path. Ensure that the config.yaml file is present at this path.	Yes	/var/lib/kubelet
defaultFsType	Used to set the default FS type for external provisioner	Yes	ext4
portGroups	List of comma-separated port group names. Any port group that is specified here must be present on all the arrays that the driver manages.	For iSCSI Only	“PortGroup1, PortGroup2, PortGroup3”
skipCertificateValidation	Skip client-side TLS verification of Unisphere certificates	No	“True”
transportProtocol	Set the preferred transport protocol for the Kubernetes cluster which helps the driver choose between FC, iSCSI and NVMeTCP, when a node has multiple protocol connectivity to a PowerMax array.	No	Empty
nodeNameTemplate	Used to specify a template that will be used by the driver to create Host/IG names on the PowerMax array. To use the default naming convention, leave this value empty.	No	Empty
modifyHostName	Change any existing host names. When nodenametemplate is set, it changes the name to the specified format else it uses driver default host name format.	No	false
powerMaxDebug	Enables low level and http traffic logging between the CSI driver and Unisphere. Don’t enable this unless asked to do so by the support team.	No	false
enableCHAP	Determine if the driver is going to configure SCSI node databases on the nodes with the CHAP credentials. If enabled, the CHAP secret must be provided in the credentials secret and set to the key “chapsecret”	No	false
fsGroupPolicy	Defines which FS Group policy mode to be used, Supported modes None, File and ReadWriteOnceWithFSType	No	“ReadWriteOnceWithFSType”
version	Current version of the driver. Don’t modify this value as this value will be used by the install script.	Yes	v2.14.0
images	List all the images used by the CSI driver and CSM. If you use a private repository, change the registries accordingly.	Yes	""
maxPowerMaxVolumesPerNode	Specifies the maximum number of volume that can be created on a node.	Yes	0
controller	Allows configuration of the controller-specific parameters.	-	-
controllerCount	Defines the number of csi-powerscale controller pods to deploy to the Kubernetes release	Yes	2
volumeNamePrefix	Defines a string prefix for the names of PersistentVolumes created	Yes	“k8s”
snapshot.enabled	Enable/Disable volume snapshot feature	Yes	true
snapshot.snapNamePrefix	Defines a string prefix for the names of the Snapshots created	Yes	“snapshot”
resizer.enabled	Enable/Disable volume expansion feature	Yes	true
healthMonitor.enabled	Allows to enable/disable volume health monitor	No	false
healthMonitor.interval	Interval of monitoring volume health condition	No	60s
nodeSelector	Define node selection constraints for pods of controller deployment	No
tolerations	Define tolerations for the controller deployment, if required	No
node	Allows configuration of the node-specific parameters.	-	-
tolerations	Add tolerations as per requirement	No	-
nodeSelector	Add node selectors as per requirement	No	-
healthMonitor.enabled	Allows to enable/disable volume health monitor	No	false
topologyControl.enabled	Allows to enable/disable topology control to filter topology keys	No	false
csireverseproxy	This section refers to the configuration options for CSI PowerMax Reverse Proxy	-	-
tlsSecret	This refers to the TLS secret of the Reverse Proxy Server.	Yes	csirevproxy-tls-secret
deployAsSidecar	If set to true, the Reverse Proxy is installed as a sidecar to the driver’s controller pod otherwise it is installed as a separate deployment.	Yes	“True”
port	Specify the port number that is used by the NodePort service created by the CSI PowerMax Reverse Proxy installation	Yes	2222
certManager	Auto-create TLS certificate for csi-reverseproxy	-	-
selfSignedCert	Set selfSignedCert to true to use a self-signed certificate	No	true
certificateFile	certificateFile contains the tls.key contents in base64 encoded format	No	tls.crt.encoded64
privateKeyFile	privateKeyFile contains the tls.key contents in base64 encoded format	No	tls.key.encoded64
authorization	Authorization is an optional feature to apply credential shielding of the backend PowerMax.	-	-
enabled	A boolean that enables/disables authorization feature.	No	false
proxyHost	Hostname of the csm-authorization server.	No	Empty
skipCertificateValidation	A boolean that enables/disables certificate validation of the csm-authorization proxy server.	No	true
migration	Migration is an optional feature to enable migration between storage classes	-	-
enabled	A boolean that enables/disables migration feature.	No	false
image	Image for dell-csi-migrator sidecar.	No	" "
nodeRescanSidecarImage	Image for node rescan sidecar which rescans nodes for identifying new paths.	No	" "
migrationPrefix	enables migration sidecar to read required information from the storage class fields	No	migration.storage.dell.com
replication	Replication is an optional feature to enable replication & disaster recovery capabilities of PowerMax to Kubernetes clusters.	-	-
enabled	A boolean that enables/disables replication feature.	No	false
replicationContextPrefix	enables side cars to read required information from the volume context	No	powermax
replicationPrefix	Determine if replication is enabled	No	replication.storage.dell.com
storageCapacity	It is an optional feature that enable storagecapacity & helps the scheduler to check whether the requested capacity is available on the PowerMax array and allocate it to the nodes.	-	-
enabled	A boolean that enables/disables storagecapacity feature.	-	true
pollInterval	It configure how often external-provisioner polls the driver to detect changed capacity	-	5m
vSphere	This section refers to the configuration options for VMware virtualized environment support via RDM	-	-
enabled	A boolean that enables/disables VMware virtualized environment support.	No	false
fcPortGroup	Existing portGroup that driver will use for vSphere.	Yes	""
fcHostGroup	Existing host(initiator group)/hostgroup(cascaded initiator group) that driver will use for vSphere.	Yes	""
vCenterHost	URL/endpoint of the vCenter where all the ESX are present	Yes	""
vCenterCredSecret	Secret name for the vCenter credentials.	Yes	""

7. Confirm the value of global.useSecret is set to true.

8. Using the TLS certificate and key created in the CSI PowerMax Reverse Proxy prerequisite step, provide the base64 encoded certificate and key contents to csireverseproxy.certManager.certificateFile and csireverseproxy.certManager.privateKeyFile.

   csireverseproxy:
     tlsSecret: csirevproxy-tls-secret
     deployAsSidecar: false
     port: 2222
     useSecret: true
     certManager:
       selfSignedCert: false
       certificateFile: |
         dGhpcyBzdHJpbmcgc2VydmVzIGFzIGFuIGV4YW1wbGUgb2Ygd2hhdCBhIGJhc2U2NCBlbmNvZGVk
         IGNlcnRpZmljYXRlIGZpbGUgbWlnaHQgbG9vayBsaWtlIGluIG15LXBvd2VybWF4LXNldHRpbmdz
         LnlhbWwgZmlsZQo=
       privateKeyFile: |
         dGhpcyBzdHJpbmcgc2VydmVzIGFzIGFuIGV4YW1wbGUgb2Ygd2hhdCBhIGJhc2U2NCBlbmNvZGVk
         IHByaXZhdGUga2V5IG1pZ2h0IGxvb2sgbGlrZSBpbiBteS1wb3dlcm1heC1zZXR0aW5ncy55YW1s
         IGZpbGUK
   

9. Install the driver using csi-install.sh bash script in the dell-csi-helm-installer directory by running

   ./csi-install.sh --namespace powermax --values ./my-powermax-settings.yaml --helm-charts-version <version>
   

   Alternatively, you can also install the driver using the standalone helm chart.

   helm install powermax ./csi-powermax --namespace powermax --values my-powermax-settings.yaml
   

Notes:

• The parameter --helm-charts-version is optional and if you do not specify the flag, by default the csi-install.sh script will clone the version of the helm chart that is specified in the driver’s csi-install.sh file. If you wish to install the driver using a different version of the helm chart, you need to include this flag. Also, remember to delete the helm-charts repository present in the csi-powermax directory if it was cloned before.
• For detailed instructions on how to run the install scripts, see the README document in the dell-csi-helm-installer folder.
• There are a set of samples provided here to help you configure the driver with reverse proxy
• This script also runs the verify.sh script in the same directory. You will be prompted to enter the credentials for each of the Kubernetes nodes. The verify.sh script needs the credentials to check if the iSCSI initiators have been configured on all nodes. You can also skip the verification step by specifying the --skip-verify-node option
• In order to enable CSM Authorization, there should be an authorization proxy server already installed.
• PowerMax Array username must have role as StorageAdmin to be able to perform CRUD operations.
• If the user is using complex K8s version like “v1.24.3-mirantis-1”, use this kubeVersion check in helm Chart file. kubeVersion: “>= 1.24.0-0 < 1.29.0-0”.
• User should provide all boolean values with double-quotes. This applies only for my-powermax-settings.yaml. Example: “true”/“false”.
• The controllerCount parameter value should be <= number of nodes in the kubernetes cluster, otherwise the install script will fail.
• Endpoints should not have any special characters at the end (e.g. trailing forward slash) apart from port number.

Storage Classes

A wide set of annotated storage class manifests has been provided in the samples/storageclass folder. Please use these samples to create new storage classes to provision storage.

Volume Snapshot Class

Starting with CSI PowerMax v1.7.0, dell-csi-helm-installer will not create any Volume Snapshot Class during the driver installation. There is a sample Volume Snapshot Class manifest present in the samples/volumesnapshotclass folder. Please use this sample to create a new Volume Snapshot Class to create Volume Snapshots.