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linuxkit/docs/external-disk.md
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Signed-off-by: Rolf Neugebauer <rolf.neugebauer@docker.com>
2017-06-27 19:56:08 +01:00

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# External Disk
`linuxkit run` has the ability to mount an external disk when booting. It involves two steps:
1. Make the disk available as a device
2. Mount the disk
## Make Disk Available
In order to make the disk available, you need to tell `linuxkit` where the disk file or block device is.
All local `linuxkit run` methods (currently `hyperkit`, `qemu`, and `vmware`) take a `-disk` argument:
* `-disk path,size=100M,format=qcow2`. For size the default is in GB but an `M` can be appended to specify sizes in MB. The format can be omitted for the platform default, and is only useful on `qemu` at present.
If the _path` is specified it will use the disk at location _path_, if you do not provide `-disk `_path_, `linuxkit` assumes a default, which is _prefix_`-state/disk.img` for `hyperkit` and `vmware` and _prefix_`-disk.img` for `qemu`.
If the disk at the specified or default `<path>` does not exist, `linuxkit` will create one of size `<size>`.
The `-disk` specification may be repeated for multiple disks, although a limited number may be supported, and some platforms currently only support a single disk.
**TODO:** GCP
## Mount the Disk
A disk created or used via `hyperkit run` will be available inside the image at `/dev/vda` with the first partition at `/dev/vda1`.
In order to use the disk, you need to do several steps to make it available:
1. Create a partition table if it does not have one.
2. Create a filesystem if it does not have one.
3. `fsck` the filesystem.
4. Mount it.
To simplify the process, two `onboot` images are available for you to use:
1. `format`, which:
* checks for a partition table and creates one if necessary
* checks for a filesystem on the partition and creates one if necessary
* runs `fsck` on the filesystem
2. `mount` which mounts the filesystem to a provided path
```yml
onboot:
- name: format
image: "linuxkit/format:ba085fdcac31c383acee3b4b91d78eb7095e5ac3"
- name: mount
image: "linuxkit/mount:fe22dc5cbf109b4637b1caaafc76ccbf5140c3da"
command: ["/mount.sh", "/var/external"]
```
Notice several key points:
1. format container
* The format container needs to have bind mounts for `/dev`
* The format container needs `CAP_SYS_ADMIN` and `CAP_MKNOD` capabilities
* The format container only needs to run **once**, not matter how many external disks or partitions are provided. It finds all block devices under `/dev` and processes them.
* The default container config should be sufficient
2. mount container
* The mount container `command` is `mount.sh` followed by the desired mount point. Remember that nearly everything in a linuxkit image is read-only except under `/var`, so mount it there.
* The mount container needs to have bind mounts for `/dev` and `/var`
* The mount container needs `CAP_SYS_ADMIN` capabilities
* The mount container needs `rootfsPropagation: shared`
* The default container config should be sufficient, though the `mount.sh` command needs to be specified
With the above in place, if run with the current disk options, the image will make the external disk available as `/dev/vda1` and mount it at `/var/external`.