Dell EMC PowerStore driver

This section explains how to configure and connect the block storage nodes to an PowerStore storage cluster.

Supported operations

  • Create, delete, attach and detach volumes.

  • Create, delete volume snapshots.

  • Create a volume from a snapshot.

  • Copy an image to a volume.

  • Copy a volume to an image.

  • Clone a volume.

  • Extend a volume.

  • Get volume statistics.

  • Attach a volume to multiple servers simultaneously (multiattach).

  • Revert a volume to a snapshot.

Driver configuration

Add the following content into /etc/cinder/cinder.conf:

[DEFAULT]
enabled_backends = powerstore

[powerstore]
# PowerStore REST IP
san_ip = <San IP>
# PowerStore REST username and password
san_login = <San username>
san_password = <San Password>
# Storage protocol
storage_protocol = <Storage protocol> # FC or iSCSI
# Volume driver name
volume_driver = cinder.volume.drivers.dell_emc.powerstore.driver.PowerStoreDriver
# Backend name
volume_backend_name = <Backend name>
# PowerStore appliances
powerstore_appliances = <Appliances names> # Ex. Appliance-1,Appliance-2
# PowerStore allowed ports
powerstore_ports = <Allowed ports> # Ex. 58:cc:f0:98:49:22:07:02,58:cc:f0:98:49:23:07:02

Driver options

The driver supports the following configuration options:

Description of configuration options

Configuration option = Default value

Description

powerstore_appliances = []

(List of String) Appliances names. Comma separated list of PowerStore appliances names used to provision volumes. Required.

powerstore_ports = []

(List of String) Allowed ports. Comma separated list of PowerStore iSCSI IPs or FC WWNs (ex. 58:cc:f0:98:49:22:07:02) to be used. If option is not set all ports are allowed.

SSL support

To enable the SSL certificate verification, modify the following options in the cinder.conf file:

driver_ssl_cert_verify = True
driver_ssl_cert_path = <path to the CA>

By default, the SSL certificate validation is disabled.

If the driver_ssl_cert_path option is omitted, the system default CA will be used.

Thin provisioning and compression

The driver creates thin provisioned compressed volumes by default. Thick provisioning is not supported.

CHAP authentication support

The driver supports one-way (Single mode) CHAP authentication. To use CHAP authentication CHAP Single mode has to be enabled on the storage side.

Note

When enabling CHAP, any previously added hosts will need to be updated with CHAP configuration since there will be I/O disruption for those hosts. It is recommended that before adding hosts to the cluster, decide what type of CHAP configuration is required, if any.

CHAP configuration is retrieved from the storage during driver initialization, no additional configuration is needed. Secrets are generated automatically.