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Distributed Block Storage (Longhorn)

K3s comes with a default Local Path Provisioner that allows creating a PersistentVolumeClaim backed by host-based storage. This means the volume is using storage on the host where the pod is located. If the POD need to be started on a different node it won’t be able to access the data.

A distributed block storage is needed to handle this issue. With distributed block storage, the storage is decouple from the pods, and the PersistentVolumeClaim can be mounted to the pod regardless of where the pod is running.

Longhorn is a distributed block storage system for Kubernetes. Lightweight, reliable and easy-to-use can be used as an alternative to Rook/Cephs. It is opensource software initially developed by Rancher Labs supporting AMD64 and ARM64 architectures that can be easily integrated with K3S.

LongHorn Installation

Installation requirements

Kubernetes version requirements

A container runtime compatible with Kubernetes (Docker v1.13+, containerd v1.3.7+, etc.)
Kubernetes >= v1.21
Mount propagation must be supported¹

Installing open-iscsi

LongHorn requires that open-iscsi package has been installed on all the nodes of the Kubernetes cluster, and iscsid daemon is running on all the nodes.²

Longhorn uses internally iSCSI to expose the block device presented by the Longhorn volume to the kuberentes pods. So the iSCSI initiator need to be setup on each node. Longhorn, acting as iSCSI Target, exposes Longhorn Volumes that are discovered by the iSCSI Initiator running on the node as /dev/longhorn/ block devices. For implementation details see Longhorn engine document.

longhorn

Check than open-iscsi is installed, and the iscsid daemon is running on all the nodes. This is necessary, since Longhorn relies on iscsiadm on the host to provide persistent volumes to Kubernetes.

Install open-iscsi package
```
sudo apt get install open-iscsi
```

Ensure iscsid daemon is up and running and is started on boot

sudo systemclt start iscsid
sudo systemctl enable iscsid

Installing NFSv4 Client

In Longhorn system, backup feature requires NFSv4, v4.1 or v4.2, and ReadWriteMany (RWX) volume feature requires NFSv4.1.³

Make sure the client kernel support is enabled on each Longhorn node.

Check NFSv4.1 support is enabled in kernel

cat /boot/config-`uname -r`| grep CONFIG_NFS_V4_1

Check NFSv4.2 support is enabled in kernel

cat /boot/config-`uname -r`| grep CONFIG_NFS_V4_2

Installl NFSv4 client in all nodes
```
sudo apt install nfs-common
```

Installing Cryptsetup and LUKS

Longhorn supports Volume encryption.

Cryptsetup is an open-source utility used to conveniently set up dm-crypt based device-mapper targets and Longhorn uses LUKS2 (Linux Unified Key Setup) format that is the standard for Linux disk encryption to support volume encryption.

To use encrypted volumes, dm_crypt kernel module has to be loaded and that cryptsetup is installed on all worker nodes.⁴

Install cryptsetup package
```
sudo apt install cryptsetup 
```

Load dm_crypt kernel module

sudo modprobe -v dm_crypt

Make that change persisent across reboots

echo "dm_crypt" | sudo tee /etc/modules-load.d/dm_crypt.conf

Installing Device Mapper Userspace Tool

The device mapper is a framework provided by the Linux kernel for mapping physical block devices onto higher-level virtual block devices. It forms the foundation of the dm-crypt disk encryption and provides the linear dm device on the top of v2 volume.⁵

Ubuntu 22.04 sever includes this package by default.

To install the package:

sudo apt install dmsetup

Longhorn issues with Multipath

Multipath running on the storage nodes might cause problems when starting Pods using Longhorn volumes (“Error messages of type: volume already mounted”).

To prevent the multipath daemon from adding additional block devices created by Longhorn, Longhorn devices must be blacklisted in multipath configuration. See Longhorn documentation related to this issue.

Include in /etc/multipath.conf the following configuration:

blacklist {
  devnode "^sd[a-z0-9]+"
}

Restart multipathd service

systemctl restart multipathd

Installation procedure using Helm

Installation using Helm (Release 3):

Step 1: Add the Longhorn Helm repository:

helm repo add longhorn https://charts.longhorn.io

Step2: Fetch the latest charts from the repository:
```
helm repo update
```

Step 3: Create namespace

kubectl create namespace longhorn-system

Step 4: Prepare longhorn-values.yml file

defaultSettings:
  defaultDataPath: "/storage"

# Ingress Resource. Longhorn dashboard.
ingress:
  ## Enable creation of ingress resource
  enabled: true
  ## Add ingressClassName to the Ingress
  ingressClassName: nginx

  # ingress host
  host: longhorn.picluster.ricsanfre.com

  ## Set this to true in order to enable TLS on the ingress record
  tls: true

  ## TLS Secret Name
  tlsSecret: longhorn-tls

  ## Default ingress path
  path: /

  ## Ingress annotations
  annotations:
    # Enable basic auth
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-type: basic
    # Secret defined in nginx namespace
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-secret: nginx/basic-auth-secret
    # Enable cert-manager to create automatically the SSL certificate and store in Secret
    # Possible Cluster-Issuer values: 
    #   * 'letsencrypt-issuer' (valid TLS certificate using IONOS API) 
    #   * 'ca-issuer' (CA-signed certificate, not valid)
    cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer: letsencrypt-issuer
    cert-manager.io/common-name: longhorn.picluster.ricsanfre.com

With this configuration:

Longhorn is configured to use /storage as default path for storing data (defaultSettings. defaultDataPath)
Ingress resource is created to make Longhorn front-end available through the URL longhorn.picluster.ricsanfre.com. Ingress resource for NGINX (ingress) is annotated so, basic authentication is used and a Valid TLS certificate is generated using Cert-Manager for longhorn.picluster.ricsanfre.com host

Step 5: Install Longhorn in the longhorn-system namespace, using Helm:
```
helm install longhorn longhorn/longhorn --namespace longhorn-system -f longhorn-values.yml
```
Note:

To enable backup to S3 storage server, a backup target need to be configured and other parameters need to be passed to helm chart. See Backup documentation to know how to configure Longhorn backup.
Step 6: Confirm that the deployment succeeded, run:
```
kubectl -n longhorn-system get pod
```

Configuring acces to Longhorn UI (Only Traefik Ingress)

Create a Ingress rule to make Longhorn front-end available through the Ingress Controller (Traefik) using a specific URL (longhorn.picluster.ricsanfre.com), mapped by DNS to Traefik Load Balancer external IP.

Longhorn backend is providing not secure communications (HTTP traffic) and thus Ingress resource will be configured to enable HTTPS (Traefik TLS end-point) and redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS. Since Longhorn frontend does not provide any authentication mechanism, Traefik HTTP basic authentication will be configured.

There is a known issue with accessing Longhorn UI from Traefik 2.x that makes Longhorn APIs calls fail. Traefik 2.x ingress controller does not set the WebSocket headers and a specific middleware to route to the Longhorn UI must be specified. See Longhorn documentation: “Troubleshooting Traefik 2.x as ingress controller” to know how to solve this particular issue.

Step 1. Create a manifest file longhorn_ingress.yml

Two Ingress resources will be created, one for HTTP and other for HTTPS. Traefik middlewares, HTTPS redirect, basic authentication and X-Forwareded-Proto headers will be used.

# Solving API issue. 
---
apiVersion: traefik.containo.us/v1alpha1
kind: Middleware
metadata:
  name: svc-longhorn-headers
  namespace: longhorn-system
spec:
  headers:
    customRequestHeaders:
      X-Forwarded-Proto: "https"
---
# HTTPS Ingress
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
  name: longhorn-ingress
  namespace: longhorn-system
  annotations:
    # HTTPS as entry point
    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.entrypoints: websecure
    # Enable TLS
    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.tls: "true"
    # Use Basic Auth Midleware configured
    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.middlewares: 
      traefik-basic-auth@kubernetescrd,
      longhorn-system-svc-longhorn-headers@kubernetescrd
    # Enable cert-manager to create automatically the SSL certificate and store in Secret
    cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer: ca-issuer
    cert-manager.io/common-name: longhorn.picluster.ricsanfre.com
spec:
  tls:
  - hosts:
    - storage.picluster.ricsanfre.com
    secretName: storage-tls
  rules:
  - host: longhorn.picluster.ricsanfre.com
    http:
      paths:
      - path: /
        pathType: Prefix
        backend:
          service:
            name: longhorn-frontend
            port:
              number: 80
---
# http ingress for http->https redirection
kind: Ingress
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: longhorn-redirect
  namespace: longhorn-system
  annotations:
    # Use redirect Midleware configured
    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.middlewares: traefik-redirect@kubernetescrd
    # HTTP as entrypoint
    traefik.ingress.kubernetes.io/router.entrypoints: web
spec:
  rules:
    - host: longhorn.picluster.ricsanfre.com
      http:
        paths:
        - path: /
          pathType: Prefix
          backend:
            service:
              name: longhorn-frontend
              port:
                number: 80

Step 2. Apply the manifest file
```
kubectl apply -f longhorn_ingress.yml
```

Testing Longhorn

For testing longorn storage, create a specification for a PersistentVolumeClaim and use the storageClassName of longhorn and a POD making use of that volume claim.

Note: Ansible playbook has been developed for automatically create this testing POD roles\longhorn\test_longhorn.yml

Step 1. Create testing namespace

kubectl create namespace testing-longhorn

Step 2. Create manifest file longhorn_test.yml

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: longhorn-pvc
  namespace: testing-longhorn
spec:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  storageClassName: longhorn
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: longhorn-test
  namespace: testing-longhorn
spec:
  containers:
  - name: longhorn-test
    image: nginx:stable-alpine
    imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
    volumeMounts:
    - name: longhorn-pvc
      mountPath: /data
    ports:
    - containerPort: 80
  volumes:
  - name: longhorn-pvc
    persistentVolumeClaim:
      claimName: longhorn-pvc

Step 2. Apply the manifest file
```
kubectl apply -f longhorn_test.yml
```

Step 3. Check created POD has been started

kubectl get pods -o wide -n testing-longhorn

Step 4. Check pv and pvc have been created

kubectl get pv -n testing-longhorn
kubectl get pvc -n testing-longhorn

Step 5. Connect to the POD and make use of the created volume

Get a shell to the container and create a file on the persistent volume:
```
kubectl exec -n testing-longhorn -it longhorn-test -- sh
echo "testing" > /data/test.txt
```
Step 6. Check in the longhorn-UI the created volumes and the replicas.

longhorn-ui-volume

longhorn-ui-replica

Setting Longhorn as default Kubernetes StorageClass

Note:

This step is not needed if K3s is installed disabling Local Path Provisioner (installation option: --disable local-storage).

In case that this parameter is not configured the following procedure need to be applied.

By default K3S comes with Rancher’s Local Path Provisioner and this enables the ability to create persistent volume claims out of the box using local storage on the respective node.

In order to use Longhorn as default storageClass whenever a new Helm is installed, Local Path Provisioner need to be removed from default storage class.

After longhorn installation check default storage classes with command:

kubectl get storageclass

NAME                   PROVISIONER             RECLAIMPOLICY   VOLUMEBINDINGMODE      ALLOWVOLUMEEXPANSION   AGE
local-path (default)   rancher.io/local-path   Delete          WaitForFirstConsumer   false                  10m
longhorn (default)     driver.longhorn.io      Delete          Immediate              true                   3m27s

Both Local-Path and longhorn are defined as default storage classes:

Remove Local path from default storage classes with the command:

kubectl patch storageclass local-path -p '{"metadata": {"annotations":{"storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class":"false"}}}'

Procedure is explained in kubernetes documentation: “Change default Storage Class”.

References

Mount Propagation is a feature activated by defult since Kubernetes v1.14 ↩
Longorn Requirements- Installing open-iscsi ↩
Longorn Requirements- Installing NFSv4 Client ↩
Longorn Requirements- Installing Cryptsetup and Luks ↩
Longorn Requirements- Installing Device Mapper ↩

Last Update: Jan 18, 2025

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