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Deploying the GlusterFS parallel file system in high availability mode

Written by
Updated at November 14, 2024

GlusterFS is a parallel distributed file system with linear scalability. With horizontal scaling, the system provides the cloud with an aggregate bandwidth of tens of GB/s and hundreds of thousands of IOPS.

Use this tutorial to create an infrastructure made up of three segments sharing a common GlusterFS file system. Placing storage disks in three different availability zones will ensure high availability and fault tolerance of your file system.

To configure a file system with high availability:

  1. Prepare your cloud.
  2. Configure the CLI profile.
  3. Prepare an environment for deploying the resources.
  4. Deploy your resources.
  5. Install and configure GlusterFS.
  6. Test the solution for availability and fault tolerance.

If you no longer need the resources you created, delete them.

Prepare your cloud

Sign up for Yandex Cloud and create a billing account:

  1. Go to the management console and log in to Yandex Cloud or create an account if you do not have one yet.
  2. On the Yandex Cloud Billing page, make sure you have a billing account linked and it has the ACTIVE or TRIAL_ACTIVE status. If you do not have a billing account, create one.

If you have an active billing account, you can go to the cloud page to create or select a folder for your infrastructure to operate in.

Learn more about clouds and folders.

The infrastructure support costs include:

Configure the CLI profile

  1. If you do not have the Yandex Cloud command line interface yet, install it and sign in as a user.

  2. Create a service account:

    1. In the management console, select the folder where you want to create a service account.
    2. In the list of services, select Identity and Access Management.
    3. Click Create service account.
    4. Enter a name for the service account, e.g., sa-glusterfs.
    5. Click Create.

    The folder specified in the CLI profile is used by default. You can specify a different folder using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

    Run the command below to create a service account, specifying sa-glusterfs as its name:

    yc iam service-account create --name sa-glusterfs

    Where name is the service account name.

    Result:

    id: ajehr0to1g8b********
folder_id: b1gv87ssvu49********
created_at: "2023-06-20T09:03:11.665153755Z"
name: sa-glusterfs

    To create a service account, use the ServiceAccountService/Create gRPC API call or the create REST API method for the ServiceAccount resource.

  3. Assign the service account the administrator role for the folder:

    1. On the management console home page, select a folder.
    2. Go to the Access bindings tab.
    3. Find the sa-glusterfs account in the list and click .
    4. Click Edit roles.
    5. Click Add role in the dialog that opens and select the admin role.

    Run this command:

    yc resource-manager folder add-access-binding <folder_ID> \
   --role admin \
   --subject serviceAccount:<service_account_ID>

    To assign the service account a role for the folder, use the setAccessBindings REST API method for the ServiceAccount resource or the ServiceAccountService/SetAccessBindings gRPC API call.

  4. Set up the CLI profile to run operations on behalf of the service account:

    1. Create an authorized key for the service account and save it to the file:

      yc iam key create \
--service-account-id <service_account_ID> \
--folder-id <ID_of_folder_with_service_account> \
--output key.json

      Where:

      • service-account-id: Service account ID.
      • folder-id: ID of the folder in which the service account was created.
      • output: Name of the file with the authorized key.

      Result:

      id: aje8nn871qo4********
service_account_id: ajehr0to1g8b********
created_at: "2023-06-20T09:16:43.479156798Z"
key_algorithm: RSA_2048

    2. Create a CLI profile to run operations on behalf of the service account:

      yc config profile create sa-glusterfs

      Result:

      Profile 'sa-glusterfs' created and activated

    3. Set the profile configuration:

      yc config set service-account-key key.json
yc config set cloud-id <cloud_ID>
yc config set folder-id <folder_ID>

      Where:

      • service-account-key: File with the service account authorized key.
      • cloud-id: Cloud ID.
      • folder-id: Folder ID.

    4. Add the credentials to the environment variables:

      export YC_TOKEN=$(yc iam create-token)
export YC_CLOUD_ID=$(yc config get cloud-id)
export YC_FOLDER_ID=$(yc config get folder-id)

Prepare an environment for deploying the resources

  1. Create an SSH key pair:

    ssh-keygen -t ed25519

    We recommend leaving the key file name unchanged.

  2. Install Terraform.

  3. Clone the yandex-cloud-examples/yc-distributed-ha-storage-with-glusterfs GitHub repository and go to the yc-distributed-ha-storage-with-glusterfs folder:

    git clone https://github.com/yandex-cloud-examples/yc-distributed-ha-storage-with-glusterfs.git
cd ./yc-distributed-ha-storage-with-glusterfs

  4. Edit the variables.tf file, specifying the parameters of the resources you are deploying:

    Warning

    The values set in the file result in deploying a resource-intensive infrastructure.
    To deploy the resources within your available quotas, use the values below or change the values according to your specific needs.

    1. In disk_size, change default to 30.
    2. In client_cpu_count, change default to 2.
    3. In storage_cpu_count, change default to 2.
    4. If you specified a non-default name when creating the SSH key pair, under local_pubkey_path, change default to <path_to_public_SSH_key>.

Deploy your resources

  1. Initialize Terraform: 
    terraform init
  2. Check the Terraform file configuration: 
    terraform validate
  3. Check the list of cloud resources you are about to create: 
    terraform plan
  4. Create resources: 
    terraform apply -auto-approve
  5. Wait until a process completion message appears: 
    Outputs:

connect_line = "ssh storage@158.160.108.137"
public_ip = "158.160.108.137"

This will create three VMs for hosting client code (client01, client02, and client03) in the folder, as well as three VMs for distributed data storage (gluster01, gluster02, and gluster03) linked to the client VMs and placed in three different availability zones.

Install and configure GlusterFS

  1. Connect to the client01 VM using the command from the process completion output:

    ssh storage@158.160.108.137

  2. Switch to the root superuser mode:

    sudo -i

  3. Install ClusterShell:

    dnf install epel-release -y
dnf install clustershell -y
echo 'ssh_options: -oStrictHostKeyChecking=no' >> /etc/clustershell/clush.conf

  4. Create the configuration files:

    cat > /etc/clustershell/groups.conf <<EOF
[Main]
default: cluster
confdir: /etc/clustershell/groups.conf.d $CFGDIR/groups.conf.d
autodir: /etc/clustershell/groups.d $CFGDIR/groups.d
EOF      

cat > /etc/clustershell/groups.d/cluster.yaml <<EOF
cluster:
    all: '@clients,@gluster'
    clients: 'client[01-03]'
    gluster: 'gluster[01-03]'
EOF

  5. Install GlusterFS:

    clush -w @all hostname # check and auto add fingerprints
clush -w @all dnf install centos-release-gluster -y
clush -w @all dnf --enablerepo=powertools install glusterfs-server -y
clush -w @gluster mkfs.xfs -f -i size=512 /dev/vdb
clush -w @gluster mkdir -p /bricks/brick1
clush -w @gluster "echo '/dev/vdb /bricks/brick1 xfs defaults 1 2' >> /etc/fstab"
clush -w @gluster "mount -a && mount"

  6. Restart GlusterFS:

    clush -w @gluster systemctl enable glusterd
clush -w @gluster systemctl restart glusterd

  7. Check the gluster02 and gluster03 VM availability:

    clush -w gluster01 gluster peer probe gluster02
clush -w gluster01 gluster peer probe gluster03

  8. Create a vol0 folder in each data storage VM and configure availability and fault tolerance by connecting to the regional-volume shared folder:

    clush -w @gluster mkdir -p /bricks/brick1/vol0
clush -w gluster01 gluster volume create regional-volume disperse 3 redundancy 1 gluster01:/bricks/brick1/vol0 gluster02:/bricks/brick1/vol0 gluster03:/bricks/brick1/vol0

  9. Configure additional performance settings:

    clush -w gluster01 gluster volume set regional-volume client.event-threads 8
clush -w gluster01 gluster volume set regional-volume server.event-threads 8
clush -w gluster01 gluster volume set regional-volume cluster.shd-max-threads 8
clush -w gluster01 gluster volume set regional-volume performance.read-ahead-page-count 16
clush -w gluster01 gluster volume set regional-volume performance.client-io-threads on
clush -w gluster01 gluster volume set regional-volume performance.quick-read off 
clush -w gluster01 gluster volume set regional-volume performance.parallel-readdir on 
clush -w gluster01 gluster volume set regional-volume performance.io-thread-count 32
clush -w gluster01 gluster volume set regional-volume performance.cache-size 1GB
clush -w gluster01 gluster volume set regional-volume server.allow-insecure on

  10. Mount the regional-volume shared folder on the client VMs:

    clush -w gluster01 gluster volume start regional-volume
clush -w @clients mount -t glusterfs gluster01:/regional-volume /mnt/

Test the solution for availability and fault tolerance

  1. Check the status of the regional-volume shared folder:

    clush -w gluster01 gluster volume status

    Result:

    gluster01: Status of volume: regional-volume
gluster01: Gluster process                             TCP Port  RDMA Port  Online  Pid
gluster01: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gluster01: Brick gluster01:/bricks/brick1/vol0         54660     0          Y       1374
gluster01: Brick gluster02:/bricks/brick1/vol0         58127     0          Y       7716
gluster01: Brick gluster03:/bricks/brick1/vol0         53346     0          Y       7733
gluster01: Self-heal Daemon on localhost               N/A       N/A        Y       1396
gluster01: Self-heal Daemon on gluster02               N/A       N/A        Y       7738
gluster01: Self-heal Daemon on gluster03               N/A       N/A        Y       7755
gluster01:
gluster01: Task Status of Volume regional-volume
gluster01: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gluster01: There are no active volume tasks
gluster01:

  2. Create a text file:

    cat > /mnt/test.txt <<EOF
Hello, GlusterFS!
EOF

  3. Make sure the file is available on all three client VMs:

    clush -w @clients sha256sum /mnt/test.txt

    Result:

    client01: 5fd9c031531c39f2568a8af5512803fad053baf3fe9eef2a03ed2a6f0a884c85  /mnt/test.txt
client02: 5fd9c031531c39f2568a8af5512803fad053baf3fe9eef2a03ed2a6f0a884c85  /mnt/test.txt
client03: 5fd9c031531c39f2568a8af5512803fad053baf3fe9eef2a03ed2a6f0a884c85  /mnt/test.txt

  4. Shut down one of the storage VMs, e.g., gluster02:

    1. In the management console, select the folder the VM belongs to.
    2. Select Compute Cloud.
    3. Select the gluster02 VM from the list, click , and select Stop.
    4. In the window that opens, click Stop.

    1. See the description of the CLI command to stop a VM:

      yc compute instance stop --help

    2. Stop the VM:

      yc compute instance stop gluster02

    Use the stop REST API method for the Instance resource or the InstanceService/Stop gRPC API call.

  5. Make sure that the VM is shut down:

    clush -w gluster01  gluster volume status

    Result:

    gluster01: Status of volume: regional-volume
gluster01: Gluster process                             TCP Port  RDMA Port  Online  Pid
gluster01: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gluster01: Brick gluster01:/bricks/brick1/vol0         54660     0          Y       1374
gluster01: Brick gluster03:/bricks/brick1/vol0         53346     0          Y       7733
gluster01: Self-heal Daemon on localhost               N/A       N/A        Y       1396
gluster01: Self-heal Daemon on gluster03               N/A       N/A        Y       7755
gluster01:
gluster01: Task Status of Volume regional-volume
gluster01: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gluster01: There are no active volume tasks
gluster01:

  6. Make sure that the file is still available on all three client VMs:

    clush -w @clients sha256sum /mnt/test.txt

    Result:

    client01: 5fd9c031531c39f2568a8af5512803fad053baf3fe9eef2a03ed2a6f0a884c85  /mnt/test.txt
client02: 5fd9c031531c39f2568a8af5512803fad053baf3fe9eef2a03ed2a6f0a884c85  /mnt/test.txt
client03: 5fd9c031531c39f2568a8af5512803fad053baf3fe9eef2a03ed2a6f0a884c85  /mnt/test.txt

How to delete the resources you created

To stop paying for the resources created, delete them:

terraform destroy -auto-approve
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