Overview

The ceph-iscsi charm deploys the Ceph iSCSI gateway service. The charm is intended to be used in conjunction with the ceph-osd and ceph-mon charms.

Warning

: This charm is in a preview state and should not be used in production. See the OpenStack Charm Guide for more information on preview charms.

Usage

Configuration

See file config.yaml for the full list of options, along with their descriptions and default values.

Deployment

We are assuming a pre-existing Ceph cluster.

To provide multiple data paths to clients deploy exactly two ceph-iscsi units:

juju deploy -n 2 cs:~openstack-charmers-next/ceph-iscsi

Then add a relation to the ceph-mon application:

juju add-relation ceph-iscsi:ceph-client ceph-mon:client

Notes:

• Deploying four ceph-iscsi units is theoretical possible but it is not an officially supported configuration.
• The ceph-iscsi application cannot be containerised.
• Co-locating ceph-iscsi with another application is only supported with ceph-osd, although doing so with other applications may still work.

Actions

This section covers Juju actions supported by the charm. Actions allow specific operations to be performed on a per-unit basis.

• add-trusted-ip
• create-target
• pause
• resume
• security-checklist

To display action descriptions run juju actions ceph-iscsi. If the charm is not deployed then see file actions.yaml.

iSCSI target management

Create an iSCSI target

An iSCSI target can be created easily with the charm's create-target action:

juju run-action --wait ceph-iscsi/0 create-target \
   client-initiatorname=iqn.1993-08.org.debian:01:aaa2299be916 \
   client-username=myiscsiusername \
   client-password=myiscsipassword \
   image-size=5G \
   image-name=small \
   pool-name=images

In the above, all option values are generally user-defined with the exception of the initiator name (client-initiatorname). An iSCSI initiator is essentially an iSCSI client and so its name is client-dependent. Some initiators may impose policy on credentials (client-username and client-password).

Important

: The underlying machines for the ceph-iscsi units must have internal name resolution working (i.e. the machines must be able to resolve each other's hostnames).

The gwcli utility

The management of targets, beyond the target-creation action described above, can be accomplished via the gwcli utility. This CLI tool has its own shell, and is available from any ceph-iscsi unit:

juju ssh ceph-iscsi/1
sudo gwcli
/> help

VMWare integration

Ceph can be used to back iSCSI targets for VMWare initiators.

Begin by accessing the VMWare admin web UI.

These instructions were written using VMWare ESXi 6.7.0.

Create a Ceph pool

If desired, create a Ceph pool to back the VMWare targets with the ceph-mon charm's create-pool action:

juju run-action --wait ceph-mon/0 create-pool name=vmware-iscsi

Enable the initiator

From the web UI select the Adapters tab in the Storage context. Click Configure iSCSI and enable iSCSI.

Take a note of the initiator name, or UID. Here the UID we'll use is iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:node-gadomski-6a5e962a.

Create an iSCSI target

With the create-target action create a target for VMWare to use. Use the pool that may have been created previously:

juju run-action --wait ceph-iscsi/0 create-target \
   client-initiatorname=iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:node-gadomski-6a5e962a \
   client-username=vmwareclient \
   client-password=12to16characters \
   image-size=5G \
   image-name=disk-1 \
   pool-name=vmware-iscsi

Note

: VMWare imposes a policy on credentials. The username should be more than eight characters and the password between twelve and sixteen characters.

Add a target to VMWare

Follow the Ceph iSCSI gateway for VMWare documentation to use the new target. Use the (CHAP) username and password passed to the create-target action.

When finished, under the Devices tab you should see the created target. To make more devices available to VMWare simply create more targets (use a different image name and optionally a different image size). You will need to Rescan and Refresh for the new devices to appear.

Note

: At the time of writing, the redundant task of setting the credentials via the ESX CLI is still a necessity. This will require you to enable SSH under Manage > Services > TSM-SSH > Actions (Start).