How to manage storage pools¶

See the following sections for instructions on how to create, configure, view and resize Storage pools.

Create a storage pool¶

Incus creates a storage pool during initialization. You can add more storage pools later, using the same driver or different drivers.

To create a storage pool, use the following command:

incus storage create <pool_name> <driver> [configuration_options...]

Unless specified otherwise, Incus sets up loop-based storage with a sensible default size (20% of the free disk space, but at least 5 GiB and at most 30 GiB).

See the Storage drivers documentation for a list of available configuration options for each driver.

Examples¶

See the following examples for how to create a storage pool using different storage drivers.

Create a directory pool named pool1:

incus storage create pool1 dir

Use the existing directory /data/incus for pool2:

incus storage create pool2 dir source=/data/incus

Create a loop-backed pool named pool1:

incus storage create pool1 btrfs

Use the existing Btrfs file system at /some/path for pool2:

incus storage create pool2 btrfs source=/some/path

Create a pool named pool3 on /dev/sdX:

incus storage create pool3 btrfs source=/dev/sdX

Create a loop-backed pool named pool1 (the LVM volume group will also be called pool1):

incus storage create pool1 lvm

Use the existing LVM volume group called my-pool for pool2:

incus storage create pool2 lvm source=my-pool

Use the existing LVM thin pool called my-pool in volume group my-vg for pool3:

incus storage create pool3 lvm source=my-vg lvm.thinpool_name=my-pool

Create a pool named pool4 on /dev/sdX (the LVM volume group will also be called pool4):

incus storage create pool4 lvm source=/dev/sdX

Create a pool named pool5 on /dev/sdX with the LVM volume group name my-pool:

incus storage create pool5 lvm source=/dev/sdX lvm.vg_name=my-pool

Create a loop-backed pool named pool1 (the ZFS zpool will also be called pool1):

incus storage create pool1 zfs

Create a loop-backed pool named pool2 with the ZFS zpool name my-tank:

incus storage create pool2 zfs zfs.pool_name=my-tank

Use the existing ZFS zpool my-tank for pool3:

incus storage create pool3 zfs source=my-tank

Use the existing ZFS dataset my-tank/slice for pool4:

incus storage create pool4 zfs source=my-tank/slice

Use the existing ZFS dataset my-tank/zvol for pool5 and configure it to use ZFS block mode:

incus storage create pool5 zfs source=my-tank/zvol volume.zfs.block_mode=yes

Create a pool named pool6 on /dev/sdX (the ZFS zpool will also be called pool6):

incus storage create pool6 zfs source=/dev/sdX

Create a pool named pool7 on /dev/sdX with the ZFS zpool name my-tank:

incus storage create pool7 zfs source=/dev/sdX zfs.pool_name=my-tank

Create an OSD storage pool named pool1 in the default Ceph cluster (named ceph):

incus storage create pool1 ceph

Create an OSD storage pool named pool2 in the Ceph cluster my-cluster:

incus storage create pool2 ceph ceph.cluster_name=my-cluster

Create an OSD storage pool named pool3 with the on-disk name my-osd in the default Ceph cluster:

incus storage create pool3 ceph ceph.osd.pool_name=my-osd

Use the existing OSD storage pool my-already-existing-osd for pool4:

incus storage create pool4 ceph source=my-already-existing-osd

Use the existing OSD erasure-coded pool ecpool and the OSD replicated pool rpl-pool for pool5:

incus storage create pool5 ceph source=rpl-pool ceph.osd.data_pool_name=ecpool

Note

Each CephFS file system consists of two OSD storage pools, one for the actual data and one for the file metadata.

Use the existing CephFS file system my-filesystem for pool1:

incus storage create pool1 cephfs source=my-filesystem

Use the sub-directory my-directory from the my-filesystem file system for pool2:

incus storage create pool2 cephfs source=my-filesystem/my-directory

Create a CephFS file system my-filesystem with a data pool called my-data and a metadata pool called my-metadata for pool3:

incus storage create pool3 cephfs source=my-filesystem cephfs.create_missing=true cephfs.data_pool=my-data cephfs.meta_pool=my-metadata

Note

When using the Ceph Object driver, you must have a running Ceph Object Gateway radosgw URL available beforehand.

Use the existing Ceph Object Gateway https://www.example.com/radosgw to create pool1:

incus storage create pool1 cephobject cephobject.radosgw.endpoint=https://www.example.com/radosgw

Create a storage pool in a cluster¶

If you are running an Incus cluster and want to add a storage pool, you must create the storage pool for each cluster member separately. The reason for this is that the configuration, for example, the storage location or the size of the pool, might be different between cluster members.

Therefore, you must first create a pending storage pool on each member with the --target=<cluster_member> flag and the appropriate configuration for the member. Make sure to use the same storage pool name for all members. Then create the storage pool without specifying the --target flag to actually set it up.

For example, the following series of commands sets up a storage pool with the name my-pool at different locations and with different sizes on three cluster members:

user@host:~$ incus storage create my-pool zfs source=/dev/sdX size=10GiB --target=vm01

Storage pool my-pool pending on member vm01

user@host:~$ incus storage create my-pool zfs source=/dev/sdX size=15GiB --target=vm02

Storage pool my-pool pending on member vm02

user@host:~$ incus storage create my-pool zfs source=/dev/sdY size=10GiB --target=vm03

Storage pool my-pool pending on member vm03

user@host:~$ incus storage create my-pool zfs

Storage pool my-pool created

Also see How to configure storage for a cluster.

Note

For most storage drivers, the storage pools exist locally on each cluster member. That means that if you create a storage volume in a storage pool on one member, it will not be available on other cluster members.

This behavior is different for Ceph-based storage pools (ceph, cephfs and cephobject) where each storage pool exists in one central location and therefore, all cluster members access the same storage pool with the same storage volumes.

Configure storage pool settings¶

See the Storage drivers documentation for the available configuration options for each storage driver.

General keys for a storage pool (like source) are top-level. Driver-specific keys are namespaced by the driver name.

Use the following command to set configuration options for a storage pool:

incus storage set <pool_name> <key> <value>

For example, to turn off compression during storage pool migration for a dir storage pool, use the following command:

incus storage set my-dir-pool rsync.compression false

You can also edit the storage pool configuration by using the following command:

incus storage edit <pool_name>

View storage pools¶

You can display a list of all available storage pools and check their configuration.

Use the following command to list all available storage pools:

incus storage list

The resulting table contains the storage pool that you created during initialization (usually called default or local) and any storage pools that you added.

To show detailed information about a specific pool, use the following command:

incus storage show <pool_name>

To see usage information for a specific pool, run the following command:

incus storage info <pool_name>

Resize a storage pool¶

If you need more storage, you can increase the size of your storage pool by changing the size configuration key:

incus storage set <pool_name> size=<new_size>

This will only work for loop-backed storage pools that are managed by Incus. You can only grow the pool (increase its size), not shrink it.