Add existing directory storage to proxmox without wiping it first
I wanted to blog about this because I couldn't find any info about it on the internet.
Against the advice of everyone, I installed Proxmox on a USB thumbdrive. And, as predicted by everyone who gave that advice, the thumbdrive failed after a couple months.
So I rebuilt my server with a new 1TB SSD disk and a backup of /etc/pve, but my (Directory) storage wasn't appearing. Most blogs suggested editing fstab but my previous config didn't have the target disks in fstab, so I knew that wasn't the solution I was looking for. Turns out, Proxmox uses systemd to mount Directory storage.
Here's the path I took based on a number of helpful forum posts and blogs.
- Take a look around the disks using
lsblk - Got more details after my initial orientation
- Added the mounts to systemd
- Enabled the mounts in systemd
- Party when it works
So first, I started with getting idea of what the current disk setup looks like with lsblk.
1> lsblk
2NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
3sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
4├─sda1 8:1 0 1007K 0 part
5├─sda2 8:2 0 512M 0 part
6└─sda3 8:3 0 931G 0 part
7 ├─pve-swap 253:0 0 8G 0 lvm [SWAP]
8 ├─pve-root 253:1 0 96G 0 lvm /
9 ├─pve-data_tmeta 253:2 0 8.1G 0 lvm
10 │ └─pve-data 253:4 0 794.8G 0 lvm
11 └─pve-data_tdata 253:3 0 794.8G 0 lvm
12 └─pve-data 253:4 0 794.8G 0 lvm
13sdb 8:16 0 465.8G 0 disk
14└─sdb1 8:17 0 465.8G 0 part
15nvme0n1 259:0 0 476.9G 0 disk
16└─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 476.9G 0 part
Then, I got more details, taking particular note of the UUID of each disk.
1root@proxmox:~# lsblk -fs
2NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
3sda1
4└─sda
5sda2 vfat FAT32 8EB3-321A
6└─sda
7sdb1 ext4 1.0 4ebde4e5-f56e-4bbb-bf16-a803efd5ae60 282.8G 33%
8└─sdb
9pve-swap swap 1 53bd881c-6778-496e-939f-76f716311840 [SWAP]
10└─sda3 LVM2_member LVM2 001 0s1SbD-EreR-DwIQ-WcdO-ywLD-e5DF-3rAtrM
11 └─sda
12pve-root ext4 1.0 1c91f72d-1721-49d3-bbf7-76681f5aec4c 86.4G 3% /
13└─sda3 LVM2_member LVM2 001 0s1SbD-EreR-DwIQ-WcdO-ywLD-e5DF-3rAtrM
14 └─sda
15pve-data
16├─pve-data_tmeta
17│ └─sda3 LVM2_member LVM2 001 0s1SbD-EreR-DwIQ-WcdO-ywLD-e5DF-3rAtrM
18│ └─sda
19└─pve-data_tdata
20 └─sda3 LVM2_member LVM2 001 0s1SbD-EreR-DwIQ-WcdO-ywLD-e5DF-3rAtrM
21 └─sda
22nvme0n1p1 ext4 1.0 4106806e-0ec1-49a4-85e8-dc2337a04086 127.9G 68%
23└─nvme0n1
Now that I've got the UUID I need, I created a mount file in /etc/systemd/system.
Note: this process could probably be simplified using something like
pvesm add dir ssd -path /mnt/pve/ssd --is_mountpoint yesbut I don't have extra disks to test.
Mount up!
1root@proxmox:~# cat /etc/systemd/system/mnt-pve-ssd.mount
2[Install]
3WantedBy=multi-user.target
4
5[Mount]
6Options=defaults
7Type=ext4
8What=/dev/disk/by-uuid/4ebde4e5-f56e-4bbb-bf16-a803efd5ae60
9Where=/mnt/pve/ssd
10
11[Unit]
12Description=Mount storage 'ssd' under /mnt/pve
After creating the configs for both mnt-pve-ssd.mount and mnt-pve-m2.mount, I checked to see if they were enabled.
1root@proxmox:~# systemctl list-unit-files -t mount
2
3UNIT FILE STATE VENDOR PRESET
4-.mount generated -
5dev-hugepages.mount static -
6dev-mqueue.mount static -
7mnt-pve-m2.mount disabled disabled
8mnt-pve-ssd.mount disabled disabled
9proc-fs-nfsd.mount static -
10proc-sys-fs-binfmt_misc.mount disabled disabled
11run-rpc_pipefs.mount static -
12sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount static -
13sys-kernel-config.mount static -
14sys-kernel-debug.mount static -
15sys-kernel-tracing.mount static -
16
1712 unit files listed.
Not yet! So I enabled both of my disks
1root@proxmox:~# systemctl enable mnt-pve-m2.mount
2Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/mnt-pve-m2.mount → /etc/systemd/system/mnt-pve-m2.mount.
3root@proxmox:~# systemctl enable mnt-pve-ssd.mount
4Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/mnt-pve-ssd.mount → /etc/systemd/system/mnt-pve-ssd.mount.
Then I checked to see they were enabled.
1root@proxmox:~# systemctl list-unit-files -t mount
2
3UNIT FILE STATE VENDOR PRESET
4-.mount generated -
5dev-hugepages.mount static -
6dev-mqueue.mount static -
7mnt-pve-m2.mount enabled enabled
8mnt-pve-ssd.mount enabled enabled
9proc-fs-nfsd.mount static -
10proc-sys-fs-binfmt_misc.mount disabled disabled
11run-rpc_pipefs.mount static -
12sys-fs-fuse-connections.mount static -
13sys-kernel-config.mount static -
14sys-kernel-debug.mount static -
15sys-kernel-tracing.mount static -
16
1712 unit files listed.
Lookin good. I rebooted, then checked out /etc/mtab and there they were.
1/dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/pve/m2 ext4 rw,relatime 0 0
2/dev/sdb1 /mnt/pve/ssd ext4 rw,relatime 0 0
Then I checked again with lsblk and there were my mounted disk, nice!
1root@proxmox:~# lsblk
2NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
3sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
4├─sda1 8:1 0 1007K 0 part
5├─sda2 8:2 0 512M 0 part
6└─sda3 8:3 0 931G 0 part
7 ├─pve-swap 253:0 0 8G 0 lvm [SWAP]
8 ├─pve-root 253:1 0 96G 0 lvm /
9 ├─pve-data_tmeta 253:2 0 8.1G 0 lvm
10 │ └─pve-data 253:4 0 794.8G 0 lvm
11 └─pve-data_tdata 253:3 0 794.8G 0 lvm
12 └─pve-data 253:4 0 794.8G 0 lvm
13sdb 8:16 0 465.8G 0 disk
14└─sdb1 8:17 0 465.8G 0 part /mnt/pve/ssd
15nvme0n1 259:0 0 476.9G 0 disk
16└─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 476.9G 0 part /mnt/pve/m2
One big caveat I wanted to mention -- if you back up your /etc/pve directory, make sure the UUID in your backup files match your current setup. Took me 3 days of battling Proxmox to realize that.