Basics operations using pxctl

In this document, we are going to explore the basic operations available through the Portworx command-line tool- pxctl.

By default, the CLI displays the information in human readable form. For example, to learn more about the available commands, type pxctl --help:

pxctl --help

px cli

Usage:
  pxctl [command]

Available Commands:
  alerts         px alerts
  auth           pxctl auth
  clouddrive     Manage cloud drives
  cloudmigrate   Migrate volumes across clusters
  cloudsnap      Backup and restore snapshots to/from cloud
  cluster        Manage the cluster
  context        pxctl context
  credentials    Manage credentials for cloud providers
  eula           Show license agreement
  help           Help about any command
  license        Manage licenses
  role           pxctl role
  sched-policy   Manage schedule policies
  secrets        Manage Secrets. Supported secret stores AWS KMS | Vault | DCOS Secrets | IBM Key Protect | Kubernetes Secrets | Google Cloud KMS
  service        Service mode utilities
  status         Show status summary
  storage-policy Manage storage policies for creating volumes
  upgrade        Upgrade PX
  volume         Manage volumes

Flags:
      --ca string            path to root certificate for ssl usage
      --cert string          path to client certificate for ssl usage
      --color                output with color coding
      --config string        config file (default is $HOME/.pxctl.yaml)
      --context string       context name that overrides the current auth context
  -h, --help                 help for pxctl
  -j, --json                 output in json
      --key string           path to client key for ssl usage
      --output-type string   use "wide" to show more details
      --raw                  raw CLI output for instrumentation
      --ssl                  ssl enabled for portworx
  -v, --version              print version and exit

Use "pxctl [command] --help" for more information about a command.

In addition, every command takes in a --json flag which converts the output to a machine-parsable JSON format. You can do something like the following to save the output in JSON format:

pxctl status --json > status.json

In most production deployments, you will provision volumes directly using Docker or your scheduler (such as a Kubernetes pod spec). However, pxctl also lets you directly provision and manage storage. In addition, pxctl has a rich set of cluster-wide management features which are explained in this document.

All operations available through pxctl are reflected back into the containers that use Portworx storage. In addition to what is exposed in Docker volumes, pxctl:

• Gives access to Portworx storage-specific features, such as cloning a running container’s storage.
• Shows the connection between containers and their storage volumes.
• Lets you control the Portworx storage cluster, such as adding nodes to the cluster. (The Portworx tools refer to servers managed by Portworx storage as nodes.)

The scope of the pxctl command is global to the cluster. Running pxctl on any node within the cluster, therefore, shows the same global details. But pxctl also identifies details specific to that node.

The current release of pxctl is located in the /opt/pwx/bin/ directory of every worker node and requires that you run it as a privileged user.

Let’s look at some simple commands.

Version

Here’s how to find out the current version:

pxctl --version

pxctl version 2.7.0.0-886586d

Status

This section has been moved to the status page.

Upgrade related operations

pxctl provides access to several upgrade related operations. You can get details on how to use it and of the available flags by running:

pxctl upgrade --help

Usage:
  pxctl upgrade [flags]

Flags:
  -l, --tag string   Specify a PX Docker image tag
  -h, --help         help for upgrade

Global Flags:
      --ca string        path to root certificate for ssl usage
      --cert string      path to client certificate for ssl usage
      --color            output with color coding
      --config string    config file (default is $HOME/.pxctl.yaml)
      --context string   context name that overrides the current auth context
  -j, --json             output in json
      --key string       path to client key for ssl usage
      --raw              raw CLI output for instrumentation
      --ssl              ssl enabled for portworx

Running pxctl upgrade

pxctl upgrade upgrades the Portworx version on a node. Let’s suppose you want to upgrade Portworx to version 1.1.16. If so, you would then type the following command:

pxctl upgrade --tag 1.1.6 my-px-enterprise

Upgrading my-px-enterprise to version: portworx/px-enterprise:1.1.6
Downloading PX portworx/px-enterprise:1.1.6 layers...
<Output truncated>

It is recommended to upgrade the nodes in a staggered manner. This way, the quorum and the continuity of IOs will be maintained.

Related topics

• For information about upgrading Portworx through Kubernetes, refer to the Upgrade on Kubernetes page.
• If you’re using the Portworx Operator, refer to the Upgrade Portworx using the Operator page.

Login/Authentication

You must make Portworx login to the secrets endpoint when using encrypted volumes and ACLs.

pxctl secrets can be used to configure authentication credentials and endpoints. Currently, Vault, Amazon KMS, and KVDB are supported.

Vault example

Here’s an example of configuring Portworx with Vault:

pxctl secrets vault login --vault-address http://myvault.myorg.com --vault-token myvaulttoken

Successfully authenticated with Vault.

AWS KMS example

To configure Portworx with Amazon KMS, type the following command:

pxctl secrets aws login

Then, you will be asked a few questions:

Enter AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID [Hit Enter to ignore]: ***
Enter AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY [Hit Enter to ignore]: ***
Enter AWS_SECRET_TOKEN_KEY [Hit Enter to ignore]: ***
Enter AWS_CMK [Hit Enter to ignore]: mykey
Enter AWS_REGION [Hit Enter to ignore]: us-east-1b

Finally, a success message will be displayed:

Successfully authenticated with AWS.

EULA

You can get a link to our EULA by running:

pxctl eula

https://portworx.com/end-user-license-agreement