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Tip: Set Longhorn To Only Use Storage On A Specific Set Of Nodes

· 2 min read
Phan Le

Applicable versions​

All Longhorn versions.

Background​

Let's say you have a cluster of 5 nodes (node-1, node-2, ..., node-5). You have some fast disks on node-1, node-2, and node-3 so you want Longhorn to use storage on those nodes only. There are a few ways to do this as below.

Tell Longhorn to create a default disk on a specific set of nodes​

  • Label node-1, node-2, and node-3 with label node.longhorn.io/create-default-disk=true (e.g., kubectl label nodes node-1 node.longhorn.io/create-default-disk=true)
  • Install Longhorn with the setting Create Default Disk on Labeled Nodes set to true.

Result: workloads that use Longhorn volumes can run on any nodes. Longhorn only uses storage on node-1, node-2, and node-3 for replica scheduling.

Create a StorageClass that select a specific set of nodes​

  • Install Longhorn normally on all nodes
  • Go to the node page on Longhorn UI, tag the node node-1, node-2, and node-3 with a tag, e.g., storage
  • Create a new StorageClass that have node selector nodeSelector: "storage" . E.g., 
    kind: StorageClass
    apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
    metadata:
      name: my-longhorn-sc
    provisioner: driver.longhorn.io
    allowVolumeExpansion: true
    reclaimPolicy: Delete
    volumeBindingMode: Immediate
    parameters:
      numberOfReplicas: "3"
      staleReplicaTimeout: "2880" # 48 hours in minutes
      fromBackup: ""
      fsType: "ext4"
      nodeSelector: "storage"
  • Use the StorageClass my-longhorn-sc for the PVCs of workload. E.g., 
    apiVersion: v1
    kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
    metadata:
      name: my-longhorn-volv-pvc
    spec:
      accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
      storageClassName: my-longhorn-s
      resources:
        requests:
          storage: 2Gi

Result: workloads that use Longhorn volumes can run on any nodes. Longhorn only schedules replicas of my-longhorn-volv-pvc on the node node-1, node-2, and node-3

Deploy Longhorn components only on a specific set of nodes​

  • Label node-1, node-2, and node-3 with label storage=longhorn (e.g., kubectl label nodes node-1 storage=longhorn)
  • Set node selector for Longhorn components by following the instruction to deploy Longhorn components only on node with label storage=longhorn

Result: Longhorn components are only deployed on node-1, node-2, and node-3. Workloads that use Longhorn volumes can only be scheduled on node-1, node-2, and node-3.