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    Storage Setup for KVM

    IT Discussion
    kvm storage lvm storage planning virtualization
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    • EddieJennings
      EddieJennings last edited by

      With my redo of my lab server, I'm thinking through how I want to handle storage.

      Fedora will be presented a 4 TB block device (Four 2 TB drives in RAID 10). If I recall correctly from doing installs in the past, the installer will want to make three partitions: boot, swap, and a third partition which will be used by LVM to make a volume for / and /home.

      For folks who are knowledgeable with KVM, do you keep your images and ISOs in the default location of /var/lib/libvirt/images/? If so, do you usually make a separate volume for /var or just make the volume for / one large volume?

      travisdh1 Obsolesce Emad R 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • travisdh1
        travisdh1 @EddieJennings last edited by

        @eddiejennings I don't normally make separate volumes except for /. Everything else normally gets one other volume.

        EddieJennings 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • EddieJennings
          EddieJennings @travisdh1 last edited by

          @travisdh1 said in Storage Setup for KVM:

          @eddiejennings I don't normally make separate volumes except for /. Everything else normally gets one other volume.

          I think I'm misunderstanding "everything else normally gets one other volume." For the above scenario you'd do something like this?

          /boot - a few hundred MB
          /swap- whatever is appropriate for 32 GB of RAM
          / - a small number of GB
          /var -a large number of GB

          travisdh1 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • stacksofplates
            stacksofplates last edited by

            So because of where I work we have to separate volumes. We have separate volumes for /, /var, /var/log, /var/log/audit, /tmp, and /home. If it's a workstation I just use my home directory somewhere for images. If it's a server, I usually just make a large volume for /var.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • black3dynamite
              black3dynamite last edited by

              On my 500GB laptop, my partition is /boot, / and /swap and I keep the default location for the VMs.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Obsolesce
                Obsolesce @EddieJennings last edited by Obsolesce

                @eddiejennings set it up how you want. It really doesn't matter unless you have policies like @stacksofplates

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • travisdh1
                  travisdh1 @EddieJennings last edited by

                  @eddiejennings said in Storage Setup for KVM:

                  @travisdh1 said in Storage Setup for KVM:

                  @eddiejennings I don't normally make separate volumes except for /. Everything else normally gets one other volume.

                  I think I'm misunderstanding "everything else normally gets one other volume." For the above scenario you'd do something like this?

                  /boot - a few hundred MB
                  /swap- whatever is appropriate for 32 GB of RAM
                  / - a small number of GB
                  /var -a large number of GB

                  It all depends on the purpose. /boot I did forget about.

                  A KVM server I'd want to put /var/lib/libvirt/images on it's own volume. If you have a lot of .iso files, possibly those as well. That /var/lib/libvirt/images was the default location for both Fedora27 and Ubuntu Server 17.10.

                  If you're going to put /var on it's own volume, make sure to do that at install time. You can do it later, but it's more of a pain.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • JaredBusch
                    JaredBusch last edited by JaredBusch

                    I do not ususally have my boot volume on the RAID array so I always have a separate mount.

                    I usually mount the RAID array on /kvm_store_a or some such. I should just mount it to /var/lib/libvirt/images

                    On my future installs, I likely will, and then link /kvm_store_a to it. Just because I like the quick access path to the location.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • Emad R
                      Emad R @EddieJennings last edited by

                      @eddiejennings

                      1. keep your images and ISOs in the default location of /var/lib/libvirt/images/?

                      Yes I do, but I create 2 new folders there, iso and vm.

                      1. Fedora will be presented a 4 TB block device ?
                        Why dont you separe that a little, and have more fun. Block device I assume DAS, if no why dont you make the storage reliable and robust, and make it its own server, like another fedora or centos install, with RAID 10 and the simplest option to share is NFS, and this way you can have many KVMs and the migration feature will actually work, and you can do RAID on just /var, and you scan scale easily with KVM nodes + KVM nodes can be state file, think salt stack, and you can treat them as pure compute nodes.
                      travisdh1 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • travisdh1
                        travisdh1 @Emad R last edited by

                        @emad-r said in Storage Setup for KVM:

                        @eddiejennings

                        1. keep your images and ISOs in the default location of /var/lib/libvirt/images/?

                        Yes I do, but I create 2 new folders there, iso and vm.

                        1. Fedora will be presented a 4 TB block device ?
                          Why dont you separe that a little, and have more fun. Block device I assume DAS, if no why dont you make the storage reliable and robust, and make it its own server, like another fedora or centos install, with RAID 10 and the simplest option to share is NFS, and this way you can have many KVMs and the migration feature will actually work, and you can do RAID on just /var, and you scan scale easily with KVM nodes + KVM nodes can be state file, think salt stack, and you can treat them as pure compute nodes.

                        Because @EddieJennings is talking about his home lab, which will consist of a single 1U server. That hadn't been mentioned in this thread.

                        EddieJennings 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • EddieJennings
                          EddieJennings @travisdh1 last edited by EddieJennings

                          @travisdh1 said in Storage Setup for KVM:

                          @emad-r said in Storage Setup for KVM:

                          @eddiejennings

                          1. keep your images and ISOs in the default location of /var/lib/libvirt/images/?

                          Yes I do, but I create 2 new folders there, iso and vm.

                          1. Fedora will be presented a 4 TB block device ?
                            Why dont you separe that a little, and have more fun. Block device I assume DAS, if no why dont you make the storage reliable and robust, and make it its own server, like another fedora or centos install, with RAID 10 and the simplest option to share is NFS, and this way you can have many KVMs and the migration feature will actually work, and you can do RAID on just /var, and you scan scale easily with KVM nodes + KVM nodes can be state file, think salt stack, and you can treat them as pure compute nodes.

                          Because @EddieJennings is talking about his home lab, which will consist of a single 1U server. That hadn't been mentioned in this thread.

                          Bah! Folks should be able to read my mind ;). There were some good ideas in this thread though.

                          What I decided on was giving enough space to / live comfortably, and gave everything else to /var.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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