Client set up for Rados Block Device ( RBD ) on Windows

What to consider before using RBD on Windows

Before deciding to use RBD on a Windows server, please take the following into consideration.

• Secure boot must be disabled on a Windows server if RBD is to be used.
  • If you are running Windows Server as a VM on VDC, secure boot should already be disabled for the VM.  If you have any issues when booting with RBD on VDC, please reach out to our support team.
  • If you are running Windows Server in a VM on Private Cloud, then you will want to confirm that Secure Boot is disabled
    • Right click on the VM in vCenter, and select Edit Settings
    • Click the VM Options Tab
    • In boot options, ensure that Secure Boot is not enabled.  This is only an option if the Firmware setting is EFI.
• Currently, RBD cannot be used for CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) and as such cannot be used for Hyper-V shared Storage.  If Hyper-V shared storage is required then please consider using Nimble iSCSI instead.

Installation

Prerequisites

The following Windows Server versions are supported by the CloudBase Ceph for Windows software that is required to use RBD on Windows.

• Windows Server 2016
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022

Download and Install Ceph for Windows

Ceph for Windows can be downloaded HERE.  After downloading this MSI file, follow the wizard to install the software.  The default settings in the wizard should be fine.

After installation, you will need to reboot the server.

Configuration

Open File Explorer and navigate to c:\%ProgramData%\Ceph.  By default, this directory will be empty

Create a directory called "out" in c:\%ProgramData%\Ceph\out.  This directory is for Ceph output, such as log and socket files.

Create a configuration file called c:\%ProgramData%\Ceph\ceph.conf.  The contents of this file should be the following:

[global]
    log to stderr = true
    run dir = C:/ProgramData/ceph/out
    crash dir = C:/ProgramData/ceph/out

[client]
    keyring = C:/ProgramData/ceph/keyring/$name.keyring
    log file = C:/ProgramData/ceph/out/$name.$pid.log
    admin socket = C:/ProgramData/ceph/out/$name.$pid.asok

[global]
    mon host = monitor1.softiron.servercontrol.com.au,monitor2.softiron.servercontrol.com.au,monitor3.softiron.servercontrol.com.au

Next, you will need to create a directory for your Ceph keyring.  This will allow your server to authenticate with the Rados Block Device.  Create the directory c:\%ProgramData%\Ceph\keyring.

Now you will need to add your keyring data to a file in this directory.  The name of the file will be c:\%ProgramData%\Ceph\client.{Image Name}.keyring, where {Image Name} is the name of your RBD image.  In this example, we will use the image name cid-YYYY-SAU-XXXXX-RS.  Your actual image name will be different, and it can be found in your mySAU portal, along with the contents of your keyring file.

The following is an example of the contents of an RBD keyring.

[client.cid-YYYY-SAU-XXXXX-RS]
    key = redacted+for+example==

Mapping and Unmapping the RBD Image

Now that the configuration file is in place, you will need to reboot the server again to ensure that the following map and unmap commands work correctly.

To map the RBD image run the following command in PowerShell, replacing all instances of cid-YYYY-SAU-XXXXX-RS with the name of your RBD Image.

rbd.exe map -n client.cid-YYYY-SAU-XXXXX-RS --namespace cid-YYYY-SAU-XXXXX-RS rbd/cid-YYYY-SAU-XXXXX-RS

When unmapping an RBD image, run the following command, and once again ensure that you are using the name of the image in your mySAU portal instead of the example name (cid-YYYY-SAU-XXXXX-RS).

rbd.exe unmap rbd/cid-YYYY-SAU-XXXXX-RS/cid-YYYY-SAU-XXXXX-RS

Formatting with Disk Manager

When the drive is mounted, you can then format and assign a drive letter to the volume the same way you would any other disks when using Disk Manager.  When the image is unmapped, then remapped the original drive letter will return as the images mount point.