PowerFlex

Installing Dell CSI Driver for PowerFlex via Dell CSM Operator

Installing CSI Driver for PowerFlex via Dell CSM Operator

The CSI Driver for Dell PowerFlex can be installed via the Dell CSM Operator. To deploy the Operator, follow the instructions available here.

Note that the deployment of the driver using the operator does not use any Helm charts and the installation and configuration parameters will be slightly different from the one specified via the Helm installer.

Listing installed drivers with the ContainerStorageModule CRD

User can query for all Dell CSI drivers using this command:

kubectl get csm --all-namespaces

Prerequisites

If multipath is configured, ensure CSI-PowerFlex volumes are blacklisted by multipathd. See troubleshooting section for details.

NOTE: This step can be skipped with OpenShift.

SDC Deployment for Operator

This feature deploys the sdc kernel modules on all nodes with the help of an init container.
For non-supported versions of the OS also do the manual SDC deployment steps given below. Refer to https://hub.docker.com/r/dellemc/sdc for supported versions.
Note: When the driver is created, MDM value for initContainers in driver CR is set by the operator from mdm attributes in the driver configuration file, config.yaml. An example of config.yaml is below in this document. Do not set MDM value for initContainers in the driver CR file manually.
- Optionally, enable sdc monitor by setting the enable flag for the sdc-monitor to true. Please note:
  - If using sidecar, you will need to edit the value fields under the HOST_PID and MDM fields by filling the empty quotes with host PID and the MDM IPs.
  - If not using sidecar, leave the enabled field set to false.

Example CR: samples/storage_csm_powerflex_v2110.yaml

    sideCars:
    # sdc-monitor is disabled by default, due to high CPU usage
      - name: sdc-monitor
        enabled: false
        image: dellemc/sdc:4.5
        envs:
        - name: HOST_PID
          value: "1"
        - name: MDM
          value: "10.xx.xx.xx,10.xx.xx.xx" #provide the same MDM value from secret

Manual SDC Deployment

For detailed PowerFlex installation procedure, see the Dell PowerFlex Deployment Guide. Install the PowerFlex SDC using this procedure:

Steps

Download the PowerFlex SDC from Dell Online support. The filename is EMC-ScaleIO-sdc-*.rpm, where * is the SDC name corresponding to the PowerFlex installation version.
Export the shell variable MDM_IP in a comma-separated list using export MDM_IP=xx.xxx.xx.xx,xx.xxx.xx.xx, where xxx represents the actual IP address in your environment. This list contains the IP addresses of the MDMs.
Install the SDC per the Dell PowerFlex Deployment Guide:
- For environments using RPM, run rpm -iv ./EMC-ScaleIO-sdc-*.x86_64.rpm, where * is the SDC name corresponding to the PowerFlex installation version.
To add more MDM_IP for multi-array support, run /opt/emc/scaleio/sdc/bin/drv_cfg --add_mdm --ip 10.xx.xx.xx.xx,10.xx.xx.xx1. Create namespace. Execute kubectl create namespace vxflexos to create the vxflexos namespace (if not already present). Note that the namespace can be any user-defined name, in this example, we assume that the namespace is ‘vxflexos’

NOTE: This step can be skipped with OpenShift CoreOS nodes.

Create Secret

Create namespace: Execute kubectl create namespace vxflexos to create the vxflexos namespace (if not already present). Note that the namespace can be any user-defined name, in this example, we assume that the namespace is ‘vxflexos’

Prepare the secret.yaml for driver configuration.

Example: secret.yaml

  # Username for accessing PowerFlex system.
  # If authorization is enabled, username will be ignored.
- username: "admin"
  # Password for accessing PowerFlex system.
  # If authorization is enabled, password will be ignored.
  password: "password"
  # System name/ID of PowerFlex system.
  systemID: "1a99aa999999aa9a"
  # Previous names used in secret of PowerFlex system.
  allSystemNames: "pflex-1,pflex-2"
  # REST API gateway HTTPS endpoint for PowerFlex system.
  # If authorization is enabled, endpoint should be the HTTPS localhost endpoint that
  # the authorization sidecar will listen on
  endpoint: "https://127.0.0.1"
  # Determines if the driver is going to validate certs while connecting to PowerFlex REST API interface.
  # Allowed values: true or false
  # Default value: true
  skipCertificateValidation: true
  # indicates if this array is the default array
  # needed for backwards compatibility
  # only one array is allowed to have this set to true
  # Default value: false
  isDefault: true
  # defines the MDM(s) that SDC should register with on start.
  # Allowed values:  a list of IP addresses or hostnames separated by comma.
  # Default value: none
  mdm: "10.0.0.1,10.0.0.2"
  # NFS is only supported on PowerFlex storage system 4.0.x
  # nasName: name of NAS server used for NFS volumes
  # nasName value must be specified in secret for performing NFS (file) operations.
  # Allowed Values: string
  # Default Value: "none"
  nasName: "nas-server"
- username: "admin"
  password: "Password123"
  systemID: "2b11bb111111bb1b"
  endpoint: "https://127.0.0.2"
  skipCertificateValidation: true
  mdm: "10.0.0.3,10.0.0.4"

If replication feature is enabled, ensure the secret includes all the PowerFlex arrays involved in replication.

After editing the file, run this command to create a secret called vxflexos-config.


kubectl create secret generic vxflexos-config -n vxflexos --from-file=config=secret.yaml

Use this command to replace or update the secret:


kubectl create secret generic vxflexos-config -n vxflexos --from-file=config=secret.yaml -o yaml --dry-run=client | kubectl replace -f -

Install Driver

Follow all the prerequisites above
Create a CR (Custom Resource) for PowerFlex using the sample files provided here. This file can be modified to use custom parameters if needed.

Users should configure the parameters in CR. The following table lists the primary configurable parameters of the PowerFlex driver and their default values:

Parameter	Description	Required	Default
dnsPolicy	Determines the DNS Policy of the Node service	Yes	ClusterFirstWithHostNet
fsGroupPolicy	Defines which FS Group policy mode to be used, Supported modes `None, File and ReadWriteOnceWithFSType`. In OCP <= 4.16 and K8s <= 1.29, fsGroupPolicy is an immutable field.	No	“ReadWriteOnceWithFSType”
replicas	Controls the number of controller pods you deploy. If the number of controller pods is greater than the number of available nodes, excess pods will become stay in a pending state. Defaults are 2 which allows for Controller high availability.	Yes	2
storageCapacity.enabled	Enable/Disable storage capacity tracking	No	true
storageCapacity.pollInterval	Configure how often the driver checks for changed capacity	No	5m
enableQuota	a boolean that, when enabled, will set quota limit for a newly provisioned NFS volume	No	none
maxVxflexosVolumesPerNode	Specify default value for maximum number of volumes that controller can publish to the node.If value is zero CO SHALL decide how many volumes of this type can be published by the controller to the node	Yes	0
Common parameters for node and controller
X_CSI_VXFLEXOS_ENABLELISTVOLUMESNAPSHOT	Enable list volume operation to include snapshots (since creating a volume from a snap actually results in a new snap)	No	false
X_CSI_VXFLEXOS_ENABLESNAPSHOTCGDELETE	Enable this to automatically delete all snapshots in a consistency group when a snap in the group is deleted	No	false
X_CSI_DEBUG	To enable debug mode	No	true
X_CSI_ALLOW_RWO_MULTI_POD_ACCESS	Setting allowRWOMultiPodAccess to “true” will allow multiple pods on the same node to access the same RWO volume. This behavior conflicts with the CSI specification version 1.3. NodePublishVolume description that requires an error to be returned in this case. However, some other CSI drivers support this behavior and some customers desire this behavior. Customers use this option at their own risk.	No	false
Controller parameters
X_CSI_POWERFLEX_EXTERNAL_ACCESS	allows specifying additional entries for hostAccess of NFS volumes. Both single IP address and subnet are valid entries	No	empty
X_CSI_HEALTH_MONITOR_ENABLED	Enable/Disable health monitor of CSI volumes from Controller plugin - volume condition	No	false
Node parameters
X_CSI_RENAME_SDC_ENABLED	Enable this to rename the SDC with the given prefix. The new name will be (“prefix” + “worker_node_hostname”) and it should not exceed 31 chars.	Yes	false
X_CSI_APPROVE_SDC_ENABLED	Enable this to to approve restricted SDC by GUID during setup	Yes	false
X_CSI_HEALTH_MONITOR_ENABLED	Enable/Disable health monitor of CSI volumes from Node plugin - volume condition	No	false

Execute this command to create PowerFlex custom resource:
```
kubectl create -f <input_sample_file.yaml>
```
This command will deploy the CSI-PowerFlex driver in the namespace specified in the input YAML file.
Verify the CSI Driver installation
Refer https://github.com/dell/csi-powerflex/tree/main/samples for the sample files.

Note :

Snapshotter and resizer sidecars are installed by default.

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