⁠13.8. GlusterFS Storage Pools

This section covers enabling a GlusterFS based storage pool. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 includes native support for creating virtual machines with GlusterFS. GlusterFS is a user-space file system that uses FUSE. When enabled in a guest virtual machine it enables a KVM host physical machine to boot guest virtual machine images from one or more GlusterFS storage volumes, and to use images from a GlusterFS storage volume as data disks for guest virtual machines.

⁠13.8.1. Creating a GlusterFS Storage Pool Using virsh

This section will demonstrate how to prepare a Gluster server and an active Gluster volume.
⁠

Procedure 13.9. Preparing a Gluster server and an active Gluster volume

  1. Obtain the IP address of the Gluster server by listing its status with the following command: 
    # gluster volume status
Status of volume: gluster-vol1
Gluster process						Port	Online	Pid
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brick 222.111.222.111:/gluster-vol1 			49155	Y	18634

Task Status of Volume gluster-vol1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are no active volume tasks
  2. If you have not already done so, install glusterfs-fuse and enable virt_use_fusefs. Then prepare one host which will connect to the Gluster server by running the following commands: 
    # setsebool virt_use_fusefs on
# getsebool virt_use_fusefs
virt_use_fusefs --> on
  3. Create a new XML file to configure a Gluster storage pool (named glusterfs-pool.xml in this example) specifying pool type as gluster, and add the following data:
    ⁠
    			
<pool type='gluster'>
	<name>glusterfs-pool</name>
	<source>
		<host name='111.222.111.222'/>
		<dir path='/'/>
		<name>gluster-vol1</name>
	</source>
</pool>

    Figure 13.24. GlusterFS XML file contents

  4. Define and start the Gluster pool, using the following commands: 
    # virsh pool-define glusterfs-pool.xml
Pool gluster-pool defined from glusterfs-pool.xml

# virsh pool-list --all
Name                 State      Autostart
-----------------------------------------
gluster-pool         inactive   no

# virsh pool-start gluster-pool
Pool gluster-pool started

# virsh pool-list --all
Name                 State      Autostart
-----------------------------------------
gluster-pool         active     no

# virsh vol-list gluster-pool
Name                 Path
-----------------------------------------
qcow2.img            gluster://111.222.111.222/gluster-vol1/qcow2.img
raw.img              gluster://111.222.111.222/gluster-vol1/raw.img

⁠13.8.2. Deleting a GlusterFS Storage Pool Using virsh

This section details how to delete a storage pool using virsh.
⁠

Procedure 13.10. Deleting a GlusterFS storage pool

  1. Set the status of the storage pool to inactive, using the following command: 
    # virsh pool-destroy gluster-pool
Pool gluster-pool destroyed
  2. Confirm the pool is inactive, using the following command 
    # virsh pool-list --all
Name                 State      Autostart
-----------------------------------------
gluster-pool         inactive   no
  3. Undefine the GlusterFS storage pool using the following command: 
    # virsh pool-undefine gluster-pool
Pool gluster-pool has been undefined
  4. Confirm the pool is undefined, using the following command: 
    # virsh pool-list --all
Name                 State      Autostart
-----------------------------------------