Configure a Pod to Use a PersistentVolume for Storage
This page shows you how to configure a Pod to use a PersistentVolumeClaim for storage. Here is a summary of the process:
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You, as cluster administrator, create a PersistentVolume backed by physical storage. You do not associate the volume with any Pod.
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You, now taking the role of a developer / cluster user, create a PersistentVolumeClaim that is automatically bound to a suitable PersistentVolume.
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You create a Pod that uses the above PersistentVolumeClaim for storage.
Before you begin
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You need to have a Kubernetes cluster that has only one Node, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a single-node cluster, you can create one by using Minikube.
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Familiarize yourself with the material in Persistent Volumes.
Create an index.html file on your Node
Open a shell to the single Node in your cluster. How you open a shell depends
on how you set up your cluster. For example, if you are using Minikube, you
can open a shell to your Node by entering minikube ssh.
In your shell on that Node, create a /mnt/data directory:
# This assumes that your Node uses "sudo" to run commands
# as the superuser
sudo mkdir /mnt/data
In the /mnt/data directory, create an index.html file:
# This again assumes that your Node uses "sudo" to run commands
# as the superuser
sudo sh -c "echo 'Hello from Kubernetes storage' > /mnt/data/index.html"
sudo, you can
usually make this work if you replace sudo with the name of the other tool.
Test that the index.html file exists:
cat /mnt/data/index.html
The output should be:
Hello from Kubernetes storage
You can now close the shell to your Node.
Create a PersistentVolume
In this exercise, you create a hostPath PersistentVolume. Kubernetes supports hostPath for development and testing on a single-node cluster. A hostPath PersistentVolume uses a file or directory on the Node to emulate network-attached storage.
In a production cluster, you would not use hostPath. Instead a cluster administrator would provision a network resource like a Google Compute Engine persistent disk, an NFS share, or an Amazon Elastic Block Store volume. Cluster administrators can also use StorageClasses to set up .
Here is the configuration file for the hostPath PersistentVolume:
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
name: task-pv-volume
labels:
type: local
spec:
storageClassName: manual
capacity:
storage: 10Gi
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
hostPath:
path: "/mnt/data"
The configuration file specifies that the volume is at /mnt/data on the
cluster's Node. The configuration also specifies a size of 10 gibibytes and
an access mode of ReadWriteOnce, which means the volume can be mounted as
read-write by a single Node. It defines the StorageClass name
manual for the PersistentVolume, which will be used to bind
PersistentVolumeClaim requests to this PersistentVolume.
Create the PersistentVolume:
kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/pods/storage/pv-volume.yaml
View information about the PersistentVolume:
kubectl get pv task-pv-volume
The output shows that the PersistentVolume has a STATUS of Available. This
means it has not yet been bound to a PersistentVolumeClaim.
NAME CAPACITY ACCESSMODES RECLAIMPOLICY STATUS CLAIM STORAGECLASS REASON AGE
task-pv-volume 10Gi RWO Retain Available manual 4s
Create a PersistentVolumeClaim
The next step is to create a PersistentVolumeClaim. Pods use PersistentVolumeClaims to request physical storage. In this exercise, you create a PersistentVolumeClaim that requests a volume of at least three gibibytes that can provide read-write access for at least one Node.
Here is the configuration file for the PersistentVolumeClaim:
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
name: task-pv-claim
spec:
storageClassName: manual
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
resources:
requests:
storage: 3Gi
Create the PersistentVolumeClaim:
kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/pods/storage/pv-claim.yaml
After you create the PersistentVolumeClaim, the Kubernetes control plane looks for a PersistentVolume that satisfies the claim's requirements. If the control plane finds a suitable PersistentVolume with the same StorageClass, it binds the claim to the volume.
Look again at the PersistentVolume:
kubectl get pv task-pv-volume
Now the output shows a STATUS of Bound.
NAME CAPACITY ACCESSMODES RECLAIMPOLICY STATUS CLAIM STORAGECLASS REASON AGE
task-pv-volume 10Gi RWO Retain Bound default/task-pv-claim manual 2m
Look at the PersistentVolumeClaim:
kubectl get pvc task-pv-claim
The output shows that the PersistentVolumeClaim is bound to your PersistentVolume,
task-pv-volume.
NAME STATUS VOLUME CAPACITY ACCESSMODES STORAGECLASS AGE
task-pv-claim Bound task-pv-volume 10Gi RWO manual 30s
Create a Pod
The next step is to create a Pod that uses your PersistentVolumeClaim as a volume.
Here is the configuration file for the Pod:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: task-pv-pod
spec:
volumes:
- name: task-pv-storage
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: task-pv-claim
containers:
- name: task-pv-container
image: nginx
ports:
- containerPort: 80
name: "http-server"
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: "/usr/share/nginx/html"
name: task-pv-storage
Notice that the Pod's configuration file specifies a PersistentVolumeClaim, but it does not specify a PersistentVolume. From the Pod's point of view, the claim is a volume.
Create the Pod:
kubectl apply -f https://k8s.io/examples/pods/storage/pv-pod.yaml
Verify that the container in the Pod is running;
kubectl get pod task-pv-pod
Get a shell to the container running in your Pod:
kubectl exec -it task-pv-pod -- /bin/bash
In your shell, verify that nginx is serving the index.html file from the
hostPath volume:
# Be sure to run these 3 commands inside the root shell that comes from
# running "kubectl exec" in the previous step
apt update
apt install curl
curl http://localhost/
The output shows the text that you wrote to the index.html file on the
hostPath volume:
Hello from Kubernetes storage
If you see that message, you have successfully configured a Pod to use storage from a PersistentVolumeClaim.
Clean up
Delete the Pod, the PersistentVolumeClaim and the PersistentVolume:
kubectl delete pod task-pv-pod
kubectl delete pvc task-pv-claim
kubectl delete pv task-pv-volume
If you don't already have a shell open to the Node in your cluster, open a new shell the same way that you did earlier.
In the shell on your Node, remove the file and directory that you created:
# This assumes that your Node uses "sudo" to run commands
# as the superuser
sudo rm /mnt/data/index.html
sudo rmdir /mnt/data
You can now close the shell to your Node.
Mounting the same persistentVolume in two places
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: test
spec:
containers:
- name: test
image: nginx
volumeMounts:
# a mount for site-data
- name: config
mountPath: /usr/share/nginx/html
subPath: html
# another mount for nginx config
- name: config
mountPath: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
subPath: nginx.conf
volumes:
- name: config
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: test-nfs-claim
You can perform 2 volume mounts on your nginx container:
/usr/share/nginx/html for the static website
/etc/nginx/nginx.conf for the default config
Access control
Storage configured with a group ID (GID) allows writing only by Pods using the same GID. Mismatched or missing GIDs cause permission denied errors. To reduce the need for coordination with users, an administrator can annotate a PersistentVolume with a GID. Then the GID is automatically added to any Pod that uses the PersistentVolume.
Use the pv.beta.kubernetes.io/gid annotation as follows:
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
name: pv1
annotations:
pv.beta.kubernetes.io/gid: "1234"
When a Pod consumes a PersistentVolume that has a GID annotation, the annotated GID is applied to all containers in the Pod in the same way that GIDs specified in the Pod's security context are. Every GID, whether it originates from a PersistentVolume annotation or the Pod's specification, is applied to the first process run in each container.
What's next
- Learn more about PersistentVolumes.
- Read the .