SolidFireVolumeDriver

• Launchpad Entry:
• Created: 14 Nov 2011
• Contributors: John Griffith

Summary

We would like to introduce support for SolidFire ISCSI applianace in the nova-volume service. This blueprint proposes a driver based on the existing SanISCSIDriver, with the ability to create/delete and export volumes.

The driver will interact with the SolidFire appliance using it's REST API.

Release Note

The SolidFire appliance is an iSCSI storage appliance utilizing solid state drives and providing enhancements including de-duplication, compression and QoS. For the initial implementation we would like to provide the ability to attach SolidFire volumes to nova-compute VM's via iSCSI.

User stories

User sets iSCSI san Flags in nova.conf, and starts/restarts nova-volume service.

Example cinder.conf entries:

--volume_driver=cinder.volume.solidfire.SolidFire

--iscsi_ip_prefix=192.168.69.211

--san_ip=192.168.69.210

--san_login=cluster_login

--san_password=password

The same driver is also available in Nova-Volume, same entries are used in nova.conf as cinder.conf just remember to subsitute nova in the path for the volume_driver (--volume_driver=nova.volume.solidfire.SolidFire).

The SolidFire appliance should now be available for use by OpenStack for additional block storage.

volume-create:

• SolidFire driver first builds a SolidFire user account based on a concatenation of the compute nodes hostname and the nov-volume objects project_id. For example if the compute nodes hostname is: 'mycomputenode' and the project_id is '1', then the SolidFire account will be 'mycomputenode-1'. This account is critical for using the SolidFire device, it determines ownership of the volumes on the system and is also used to store/configure all of the CHAP information. The next step is to querie the SolidFire system and see if the account exists, if it does we extract the information we pull the information we need from the system (CHAP and accountID info) and use it in volume creation. If the account does now exist, then we create it using a randomly generated 12 character string for CHAP passwords. Using the accountID the requested volume is created

volume-attach:

• Volume is attached using the current iSCSI/nova api methods. Model updates are done during creation as well as export to avoid re-scans.

volume-delete:

• The SolidFire driver verifies the volume_name from the database as well as the account and issues the SolidFire API call to delete the volume.

On volume_create()

• A user account name is built based on a concatenation of the compute nodes hostname and the project-id ie on compute node with hostname 'myhost' and a project_if of '1' the result would be:
  • 'myhost-1'

This has been tested with the current Diablo release using the nova api, as well as with the current Trunk release of Essex (devstack install) using dashboard.

Design

Subclass implementation of the SanISCSIDriver in nova/volume/san.py

Based off of existing Solaris and HP modules.