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Quick start: glusterfs block storage

Glusterfs provides block storage using the gluster-block project (https://github.com/gluster/gluster-block). As mentioned there, the basic idea is to:

  • Create a file in the gluster volume.
  • Expose that file as a tcmu backstore using tcmu-runner, exporting the target file as iSCSI LUN.
  • From the initiator, login to the exported LUN, format, mount and start consuming the block dev.

How to set up

On the target machine:

Let us assume a 1 node setup with glusterfs and gluster-block binaries installed, with glusterd and gluster-blockd running.

systemctl status glusterd
systemctl status gluster-block

gluster volume create block-store 192.168.122.137:/bricks/brick1
gluster volume start block-store
gluster-block create block-test/sample-block 192.168.122.137 1GiB
gluster-block list block-test

On the initiator machine:

lsblk
iscsiadm -m discovery -t st -p 192.168.122.137 -l
lsblk
mkfs.xfs /dev/new-device
mount /dev/new-device /mnt

We can now mount and use the device as needed.

How to tear down

On the initiator machine:

umount /mnt
iscsiadm -m node -u

On the target machine:

gluster-block delete block-test/sample-block
gluster volume stop block-test
gluster volume delete block-test