Getting Started Guide

Red Hat Ceph Storage 9

Guide on getting started with Red Hat Ceph Storage

Red Hat Ceph Storage Documentation Team

Abstract

This document provides information on getting started with Object storage, Block storage, and File storage for a Red Hat Ceph Storage cluster.

Red Hat is committed to replacing problematic language in our code, documentation, and web properties. We are beginning with these four terms: master, slave, blacklist, and whitelist. Because of the enormity of this endeavor, these changes will be implemented gradually over several upcoming releases. For more details, see our CTO Chris Wright's message.

Chapter 1. Getting started

Learn about how to get started with Red Hat Ceph Storage and its basic features. This information is designed for customers that are new to Red Hat Ceph Storage or established customers wanting an overview of how Red Hat Ceph Storage works and where to start in the workflow.

This information provides basic workflows for Red Hat Ceph Storage. For detailed instructions links to the correct documentation sections are provided.

Use this information to understand how to use Red Hat Ceph Storage basic workflows. For detailed instructions links to the correct documentation section are provided.

Before you begin to start working with Red Hat Ceph Storage, familiarize yourself with the following information:

Chapter 2. Object storage

The Ceph Object Gateway client is a leading storage backend for cloud platforms that provides a RESTful S3-compliant and Swift-compliant object storage for objects like audio, bitmap, video, and other data. Ceph Object Gateway, also known as RADOS Gateway (RGW), is an object storage interface built on top of the librados library to provide applications with a RESTful gateway to Ceph storage clusters.

Common use cases

The following are some of the most common uses cases for CephFS.

Storage as a Service (SaaS): Provides scalability and performance for both small and large object stores.
AI, Analytics and Big Data including Data Lake and Data Lake House: Cloud native data lake, with massive scalability and high availability to support demanding workloads.
Backup and archive or large amounts of unstructured data: A unique new way to architect the dataflow in applications which is through event driven architectures.
Data intensive workloads like Cloud Native (S3) object data: Back up and recover into and from an object storage helps improve recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO).
Internet of Things (IoT): Object gateways serve as intermediatries in IoT systems, aggregating data from various devices, translating communication protocols, and enabling edge processing. They enhance security, facilitate device management, and ensure interoperability, streaming the overall IoT ecosystem.

2.1. Object storage common workloads

Understand the most common workloads for object storage.

Data efficiency: Use for erasure coding, thin provisioning, lifecycle management, and compression.
Data security: Use for object lock, key management, at rest and inflight encryption, and WORM.
Data resilience: Use for backup, snapshots, cloning, and business continuity.

2.2. Object storage interfaces

Learn about the three object storage interfaces.

Administrative API: Provides an administrative interface for managing the Ceph Object Gateways. For more information, see Ceph Object Gateway administrative API
S3: Provides object storage functionality with an interface that is compatible with a large subset of the Amazon S3 RESTful API. For more information, see Ceph Object Gateway and the S3 API.
Swift: Provides object storage functionality with an interface that is compatible with a large subset of the OpenStack Swift API. The Ceph Object Gateway is a service interacting with a Ceph storage cluster. For more information, see Ceph Object Gateway and the Swift API.

2.3. Getting started with object storage

This section lists the relevant tasks required for working with object storage.

Before you begin

See This content is not included.Compatibility Matrix for Red Hat Ceph Storage 7.0 for a list of backup vendors that are certified with Red Hat Ceph Storage as an S3 target.

Prerequisites

There are specific network and hardware requirements to work with Ceph object storage. For more information, see This content is not included.Red Hat Ceph Storage considerations and recommendations.

Setting up S3 server-side security

For detailed information, see This content is not included.Server-Side Encryption (SSE).

Creating S3 users and testing S3 access

For detailed information on creating S3 users, see This content is not included.Create an S3 user. For detailed information on testing S3 access, see This content is not included.Test S3 access.

Managing Object Gateway through the dashboard

For detailed information, see This content is not included.Management of Ceph Object Gateway using the dashboard.

Multi-site replication to enable Disaster Recovery of backup

For detailed information, see This content is not included.Failover and disaster recovery.

Deploying Ceph Object Gateway with Ceph Orchestrator

Ceph Object Gateway is deployed by either using the Ceph Orchestrator with the command line interface or by using the service specification. You can also configure multi-site Ceph Object Gateways, and remove the Ceph Object Gateway using the Ceph Orchestrator. The cephadm command deploys the Ceph Object Gateway as a collection of daemons that manages a single-cluster deployment or a particular realm and zone in a multi-site deployment.

For full Ceph Object Gateway deployment information and instructions, see This content is not included.Deployment.

Alternatively, you can deploy Ceph Object Gateway using the command-line interface. For more information, see This content is not included.Deploying the Ceph Object Gateway using the command line interface.

Chapter 3. Block storage

Red Hat Ceph Storage uses block storage, and refers to this as Ceph Block Devices. Block-based storage interfaces are the most common way to store data with rotating media such as hard drives and flash storage (SSDs and HDDs).

Ceph Block Devices interact with OSDs by using the librbd library.

Ceph Block Devices deliver high performance with infinite scalability to Kernel Virtual Machines (KVMs), such as Quick Emulator (QEMU), and cloud-based computing systems, like OpenStack, that rely on the libvirt and QEMU utilities to integrate with Ceph Block Devices. You can use the same storage cluster to operate the Ceph Object Gateway and Ceph Block Devices simultaneously.

Ceph Block Devices can easily be managed through either the Ceph dashboard or command-line interface (CLI) commands. For detailed information about Ceph Block Devices, see This content is not included.Introduction to Ceph block devices.

3.1. Block storage common workloads

Understand the most common workloads for Ceph Block Device.

Database store: Use for data protection application database backup.
Device mirroring: Use to protect against data loss or site failures.
Data resiliency: Use for replication and erasure coding.

3.2. Getting started with block storage

This section lists the relevant tasks required for working with block storage.

Managing Ceph Block Devices with the dashboard

Manage Ceph Block Devices by using the Red Hat Ceph Storage dashboard. As a storage administrator, you can manage and monitor block device images on the Red Hat Ceph Storage dashboard. The functionality is divided between generic image functions and mirroring functions. For example, you can create new images, view the state of images that are mirrored across clusters, and set IOPS limits on an image.

For detailed information, see This content is not included.Management of block devices using the Ceph dashboard.

Common block storage CLI commands

This information is for a quick reference of basic block image CLI commands. For a full list and more detailed information about each command, see This content is not included.Introduction to Ceph block devices.

Creating images
Syntax
```
rbd create IMAGE_NAME --size MEGABYTES --pool POOL_NAME
```
Important
A pool must be created before creating a block image. For details, see This content is not included.Creating a block device pool.
Listing images
Syntax
```
rbd ls POOL_NAME
```
Retrieving image information from a particular image in the default pool
Syntax
```
rbd --image IMAGE_NAME info
```
Retrieving information from an image within a pool.
Syntax
```
rbd --image IMAGE_NAME -p POOL_NAME info
```
Resizing images.
- Increasing the maximum size of a Ceph Block Device image for the default rbd pool.
  Syntax
  rbd resize --image IMAGE_NAME --size SIZE
- Increasing the maximum size of a Ceph Block Deivce image for a specific pool.
  Syntax
  rbd resize --image POOL_NAME/IMAGE_NAME --size SIZE
- Decreasing the maximum size of a Ceph Block Device image for the default rbd pool.
  Syntax
  rbd resize --image IMAGE_NAME --size SIZE --allow-shrink
- Decreasing the maximum size of a Ceph Block Device image for a specific pool.
  Syntax
  rbd resize --image POOL_NAME/IMAGE_NAME --size SIZE --allow-shrink
Moving images to the trash.
Syntax
```
rbd trash mv POOL_NAME/IMAGE_NAME
```
Restoring an image from the trash.
Syntax
```
rbd trash restore POOL_NAME/IMAGE_NAME
```
Ensuring the rbd_support Ceph Manager module is enabled.
Syntax
```
ceph mgr module ls
```

Chapter 4. File storage

Ceph File System (CephFS) is a file system compatible with POSIX standards that is built on top of Ceph’s distributed object store, called RADOS (Reliable Autonomic Distributed Object Storage).

Ceph File System

CephFS provides file access to a Red Hat Ceph Storage cluster and uses the POSIX semantics wherever possible.

4.1. File storage common workloads

The most common workload for using CephFS is for data security.

For more information about securing your data by using CephFS, see This content is not included.Ceph File System.

4.2. Getting started with file storage

This section lists the relevant tasks required for working with file storage.

Limitations

To know about the limitations and POSIX standards to consider when working with Ceph File System, see This content is not included.Ceph File System limitations and the POSIX standards.

Setting up the Ceph File System

Use the following procedures to setup a Ceph File System.

Basic CephFS CLI commands

This information is for a quick reference of basic CephFS CLI commands. For a full list and more detailed information about each command, see This content is not included.Management of Ceph File System volumes, sub-volume groups, and sub-volumes.

Creating a Ceph File System volume.
Syntax
```
ceph fs volume create VOLUME_NAME
```

Creating a File System subvolume.

Syntax

ceph fs subvolume create VOLUME_NAME SUBVOLUME_NAME [--size SIZE_IN_BYTES --group_name SUBVOLUME_GROUP_NAME --pool_layout DATA_POOL_NAME --uid UID --gid GID --mode OCTAL_MODE] [--namespace-isolated]

Creating a File System subvolume group.

Syntax

ceph fs subvolumegroup create VOLUME_NAME GROUP_NAME [--pool_layout DATA_POOL_NAME --uid UID --gid GID --mode OCTAL_MODE]

Listing Ceph File System volumes.
Syntax
```
ceph fs volume ls
```
Listing Ceph File System subvolumes.
Syntax
```
ceph fs subvolume ls VOLUME_NAME
```
Listing Ceph File System subvolume groups.
Syntax
```
ceph fs subvolumegroup ls VOLUME_NAME
```
Viewing information about a Ceph File system volume.
Syntax
```
ceph fs volume info VOLUME_NAME
```
Removing a Ceph File System volume.
Syntax
```
ceph fs volume rm VOLUME_NAME [--yes-i-really-mean-it]
```
Removing a file system subvolume.
Syntax
```
ceph fs subvolume rm VOLUME_NAME SUBVOLUME_NAME
```
Removing a file system subvolume group.
Syntax
```
ceph fs subvolumegroup rm VOLUME_NAME GROUP_NAME [--force]
```

Creating a snapshot of a file system subvolume.

Syntax

ceph fs subvolume snapshot create VOLUME_NAME SUBVOLUME_NAME SNAP_NAME [--group_name GROUP_NAME]

4.3. Deploying the Ceph File System

Understand the basic deployment procedures for Ceph File System.

Detailed deployment instructions for Ceph File System is found in This content is not included.Deployment of the Ceph File System.

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