CSI Drivers

Pre-requisites for installation of the CSI Drivers

On Upstream Kubernetes clusters, ensure that to install

• VolumeSnapshot CRDs - Install v1 VolumeSnapshot CRDs
• External Volume Snapshot Controller

Volume Snapshot CRD’s

The Kubernetes Volume Snapshot CRDs can be obtained and installed from the external-snapshotter project on Github. Manifests are available here

Volume Snapshot Controller

The CSI external-snapshotter sidecar is split into two controllers:

• A common snapshot controller
• A CSI external-snapshotter sidecar

The common snapshot controller must be installed only once in the cluster irrespective of the number of CSI drivers installed in the cluster. On OpenShift clusters, the common snapshot-controller is pre-installed. In the clusters where it is not present, it can be installed using kubectl and the manifests are available here

NOTE:

• The manifests available on GitHub install the snapshotter image:
  • quay.io/k8scsi/csi-snapshotter:v6.2.1
• The CSI external-snapshotter sidecar is still installed along with the driver and does not involve any extra configuration.

Installation example

You can install CRDs and the default snapshot controller by running the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/kubernetes-csi/external-snapshotter/
cd ./external-snapshotter
git checkout release-<your-version>
kubectl create -f client/config/crd
kubectl create -f deploy/kubernetes/snapshot-controller

NOTE:

• It is recommended to use 6.2.1 version of snapshotter/snapshot-controller.

Installing CSI Driver via Operator

Refer PowerScale Driver to install the driver via Operator
Refer PowerFlex Driver to install the driver via Operator
Refer PowerStore Driver to install the driver via Operator

Note: If you are using an OLM based installation, example manifests are available in OperatorHub UI. You can edit these manifests and install the driver using the OperatorHub UI.

Verifying the driver installation

Once the driver Custom Resource (CR) is created, you can verify the installation as mentioned below

• Check if ContainerStorageModule CR is created successfully using the command below:

  $ kubectl get csm/<name-of-custom-resource> -n <driver-namespace> -o yaml
  

• Check the status of the CR to verify if the driver installation is in the Succeeded state. If the status is not Succeeded, see the Troubleshooting guide for more information.

Update CSI Drivers

The CSI Drivers and CSM Modules installed by the Dell CSM Operator can be updated like any Kubernetes resource. This can be achieved in various ways which include:

• Modifying the installation directly via kubectl edit For example - If the name of the installed PowerScale driver is powerscale, then run

  # Replace driver-namespace with the namespace where the PowerScale driver is installed
  $ kubectl edit csm/powerscale -n <driver-namespace>
  

  and modify the installation
• Modify the API object in-place via kubectl patch

Supported modifications

• Changing environment variable values for driver
• Updating the image of the driver
• Upgrading the driver version

NOTES:

1. If you are trying to upgrade the CSI driver from an older version, make sure to modify the configVersion field if required.

      driver:
        configVersion: v2.6.0
   

2. Do not try to update the operator by modifying the original CustomResource manifest file and running the kubectl apply -f command. As part of the driver installation, the Operator sets some annotations on the CustomResource object which are further utilized in some workflows (like detecting upgrade of drivers). If you run the kubectl apply -f command to update the driver, these annotations are overwritten and this may lead to failures.

Uninstall CSI Driver

The CSI Drivers and CSM Modules can be uninstalled by deleting the Custom Resource.

For e.g.

$ kubectl delete csm/powerscale -n <driver-namespace>

By default, the forceRemoveDriver option is set to true which will uninstall the CSI Driver and CSM Modules when the Custom Resource is deleted. Setting this option to false is not recommended.

SideCars

Although the sidecars field in the driver specification is optional, it is strongly recommended to not modify any details related to sidecars provided (if present) in the sample manifests. The only exception to this is modifications requested by the documentation, for example, filling in blank IPs or other such system-specific data. Any modifications not specifically requested by the documentation should be only done after consulting with Dell support.