Overview

The HPE GreenLake for File Storage CSI Driver is deployed by using industry standard means, either a Helm chart or an Operator.

Helm

Helm is the package manager for Kubernetes. Software is being delivered in a format designated as a "chart". Helm is a standalone CLI that interacts with the Kubernetes API server using your KUBECONFIG file.

The official Helm chart for the HPE GreenLake for File Storage CSI Driver is hosted on Artifact Hub. In an effort to avoid duplicate documentation, please see the chart for instructions on how to deploy the CSI driver using Helm.

Note

It's possible to use the HPE CSI Driver for Kubernetes steps for v2.4.2 or later to mirror the required images to an internal registry for installing into an air-gapped environment.

Operator

The Operator pattern is based on the idea that software should be instantiated and run with a set of custom controllers in Kubernetes. It creates a native experience for any software running on Kubernetes.

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

During the beta, it's only possible to sideload the HPE GreenLake for File Storage CSI Operator using the Operator SDK.

The installation procedures assumes the "hpe-storage" Namespace exists:

oc create ns hpe-storage

First, deploy or download the SCC:

oc apply -f https://scod.hpedev.io/partners/redhat_openshift/examples/scc/hpe-filex-csi-scc.yaml

Install the Operator:

operator-sdk run bundle --timeout 5m -n hpe-storage quay.io/hpestorage/filex-csi-driver-operator-bundle-ocp:v1.0.0-beta

The next step is to create a HPEGreenLakeFileCSIDriver resource, this can also be done in the OpenShift cluster console.

# oc apply -f https://scod.hpedev.io/filex_csi_driver/examples/deployment/hpegreenlakefilecsidriver-v1.0.0-beta-sample.yaml
apiVersion: storage.hpe.com/v1
kind: HPEGreenLakeFileCSIDriver
metadata:
  name: hpegreenlakefilecsidriver-sample
spec:
  # Default values copied from <project_dir>/helm-charts/hpe-greenlake-file-csi-driver/values.yaml
  controller:
    affinity: {}
    labels: {}
    nodeSelector: {}
    resources:
      limits:
        cpu: 2000m
        memory: 1Gi
      requests:
        cpu: 100m
        memory: 128Mi
    tolerations: []
  disableNodeConformance: false
  imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
  images:
    csiAttacher: registry.k8s.io/sig-storage/csi-attacher:v4.6.1
    csiControllerDriver: quay.io/hpestorage/filex-csi-driver:v1.0.0-beta
    csiNodeDriver: quay.io/hpestorage/filex-csi-driver:v1.0.0-beta
    csiNodeDriverRegistrar: registry.k8s.io/sig-storage/csi-node-driver-registrar:v2.10.1
    csiNodeInit: quay.io/hpestorage/filex-csi-init:v1.0.0-beta
    csiProvisioner: registry.k8s.io/sig-storage/csi-provisioner:v5.0.1
    csiResizer: registry.k8s.io/sig-storage/csi-resizer:v1.11.1
    csiSnapshotter: registry.k8s.io/sig-storage/csi-snapshotter:v8.0.1
  kubeletRootDir: /var/lib/kubelet
  node:
    affinity: {}
    labels: {}
    nodeSelector: {}
    resources:
      limits:
        cpu: 2000m
        memory: 1Gi
      requests:
        cpu: 100m
        memory: 128Mi
    tolerations: []

For reference, this is how the Operator is uninstalled:

operator-sdk cleanup hpe-filex-csi-operator -n hpe-storage

Add a Storage Backend

Once the CSI driver is deployed, two additional resources need to be created to get started with dynamic provisioning of persistent storage, a Secret and a StorageClass.

Tip

Naming the Secret and StorageClass is entirely up to the user, however, to keep up with the examples on SCOD, it's highly recommended to use the names illustrated here.

Secret Parameters

All parameters are mandatory and described below.

Parameter Description
endpoint This is the management hostname or IP address of the actual backend storage system.
username Backend storage system username with the correct privileges to perform storage management.
password Backend storage system password.

Example:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: hpe-file-backend
  namespace: hpe-storage
stringData:
  endpoint: 192.168.1.1
  username: my-csi-user
  password: my-secret-password

Create the Secret using kubectl:

kubectl create -f secret.yaml

Tip

In a real world scenario it's more practical to name the Secret something that makes sense for the organization. It could be the hostname of the backend or the role it carries, i.e "hpe-greenlake-file-sanjose-prod".

Next step involves creating a default StorageClass.