Configuring XenAPI Storage Manager

Prerequisites

xensm requires that you use either Citrix XenServer or XCP as the hypervisor. The NetApp and EqualLogic backends are not supported on XCP.
Ensure all hosts running volume and compute services have connectivity to the storage system.

Configuration

Set the following configuration options for the nova volume service: (nova-compute also requires the volume_driver configuration option.)
```
--volume_driver="nova.volume.xensm.XenSMDriver"
--use_local_volumes=False
                                
```

The backend configurations that the volume driver uses need to be created before starting the volume service.

$ nova-manage sm flavor_create <label> <description>

$ nova-manage sm flavor_delete <label>

$ nova-manage sm backend_add <flavor label> <SR type> [config connection parameters]

Note: SR type and config connection parameters are in keeping with the XenAPI Command Line Interface. http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX124887

$ nova-manage sm backend_delete <backend-id>

Example: For the NFS storage manager plugin, the steps below may be used.

$ nova-manage sm flavor_create gold "Not all that glitters"

$ nova-manage sm flavor_delete gold

$ nova-manage sm backend_add gold nfs name_label=mybackend server=myserver serverpath=/local/scratch/myname

$ nova-manage sm backend_remove 1

Start cinder and nova-compute with the new configuration options.

Creating and Accessing the volumes from VMs

Currently, the flavors have not been tied to the volume types API. As a result, we simply end up creating volumes in a "first fit" order on the given backends.

The standard euca-* or OpenStack API commands (such as volume extensions) should be used for creating, destroying, attaching, or detaching volumes.

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