How to manage local storage using stratis | RedHat

Introduction:

stratis : is a new technology started in redhat enterprise linux ( RHEL 8 ) used as a local storage-management solution for Linux. It is focused on simplicity and ease of use, and gives you access to advanced storage features.

The central concept of Stratis:

is a storage pool. This pool is created from one or more local disks or partitions, and volumes are created from the pool.

Stratis components :

• Block devices : such as a disk or a disk partition.
• pools : Composed of one or more block devices.
• filesystem : pool can contain one or more file systems, which store files.

What is pools features?

• File system snapshots
• Thin provisioning
• Tiering

Supported block devices in stratis :

• LUKS : Linux Unified Key Setup
• LVM logical volumes : provides logical volume management for the Linux kernel
• iSCSI : you can check it here
• HDDs and SSDs
• NVMe devices : the newest type of hard disks it characterized by high speed in reading and writing .

How to install stratis on RedHat ?

• open your terminal and write the command to install the two packages

sudo yum install stratisd stratis-cli -y

• Then you need to enable the daemon of stratis stratisd

systemctl enable stratisd

• And start the daemon

systemctl start stratisd

• At the end you need check the status of the service before starting

systemctl status stratisd

How to use stratis and manage local storage ?

• I will create pool with 2 disks inside it .. each disk have capacity 20 GB (not static )

stratis pool create unixcop-pool /dev/sdb /dev/sdc

• If you need to check for any configured stratis pool .. write this command

stratis pool list

• To add new disk on the pool write the following command

stratis pool add-data unixcop-pool /dev/sdd

• Then you need to create filesystems on the pool to store file on it .. follow the next command to create it.

stratis filesystem create unixcop-pool unixcop-filesystem1

stratis filesystem create unixcop-pool unixcop-filesystem2

• Now you need to test it .. follow the next steps

1. I will make 2 directories
2. Then mount the filesystems

mkdir /unix /cop 

mount /stratis/unixcop-pool/unixcop-filesystem1 /unix

mount /stratis/unixcop-pool/unixcop-filesystem2 /cop

How to remove filesystem or pool ?

• To remove the filesystem from the pool .. write the following command

stratis filesystem destroy unixcop-pool unixcop-filesystem1

• To remove pool you must remove filesystems first , then remove the pool

stratis pool destroy unixcop-pool 

Conclusion:

The article clarify the new technology of storage management technique , just you need to follow the steps to configure and manage stratis local storage pools.

for more information about stratis use the command : man stratis