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Inspect Volumes

This document explains how you can get detailed information about the settings and the usage of your Portworx volumes. This can be used to investigate various aspects related to your Portworx cluster such as identifying bottlenecks or improving the overall performance.

Inspect a volume

To inspect a volume, run the pxctl volume inspect command with the name of the volume as a parameter. The following example shows replication and aggregation, and the volumes are named accordingly. Note that these commands are run from the worker nodes. You can also execute these commands from a computer that has access to the Kubernetes cluster using kubectl exec commands.

pxctl volume create vol-rep1-size4gi-agg2  -r 1  -s 4 -a 2
Volume successfully created: 1006031320660300176
pxctl volume create vol-rep2-size4gi  -r 2  -s 4
Volume successfully created: 153462940070253844

This example volume uses an aggregation set and has no replication:

pxctl volume inspect 1006031320660300176
	Volume          	 :  1006031320660300176
	Name            	 :  vol-rep1-size4gi-agg2
	Size            	 :  4.0 GiB
	Format          	 :  ext4
	HA              	 :  1
	IO Priority     	 :  LOW
	Creation time   	 :  Oct 28 17:17:43 UTC 2022
	Shared          	 :  no
	Status          	 :  up
	State           	 :  detached
	Mount Options          	 :  discard
	Reads           	 :  0
	Reads MS        	 :  0
	Bytes Read      	 :  0
	Writes          	 :  0
	Writes MS       	 :  0
	Bytes Written   	 :  0
	IOs in progress 	 :  0
	Bytes used      	 :  2.1 MiB
	Replica sets on nodes:
		Set 0
		  Node 		 : 192.168.58.76 (Pool 8d925483-f658-422c-844a-31df5f03ebcc )
		Set 1
		  Node 		 : 192.168.74.160 (Pool 9b05b828-747d-4f59-988e-246d810d4a07 )
	Replication Status	 :  Detached

This example volume uses a replication factor of 2 and no aggregation:

pxctl volume inspect 153462940070253844
	Volume          	 :  153462940070253844
	Name            	 :  vol-rep2-size4gi
	Size            	 :  4.0 GiB
	Format          	 :  ext4
	HA              	 :  2
	IO Priority     	 :  LOW
	Creation time   	 :  Oct 28 17:18:02 UTC 2022
	Shared          	 :  no
	Status          	 :  up
	State           	 :  detached
	Mount Options          	 :  discard
	Reads           	 :  0
	Reads MS        	 :  0
	Bytes Read      	 :  0
	Writes          	 :  0
	Writes MS       	 :  0
	Bytes Written   	 :  0
	IOs in progress 	 :  0
	Bytes used      	 :  2.1 MiB
	Replica sets on nodes:
		Set 0
		  Node 		 : 192.168.58.76 (Pool 8d925483-f658-422c-844a-31df5f03ebcc )
		  Node 		 : 192.168.25.112 (Pool d69592a5-99b4-4bcc-bcdd-46e648a2708a )
	Replication Status	 :  Detached

By knowing what the fields mean, you can get a deeper insight into your volume’s usage. For example:

  • Volume: represents the ID of the volume. Every time a new volume gets created, Portworx generates a unique ID and assigns it to the newly created volume.
  • Size: the size of the volume expressed in binary Gigabytes (GiB)
  • Format: the file system used to store data. Currently, Portworx supports xfs and ext4.
  • HA: represents the replication factor for the volume. As an example, if a volume has a replication factor of 3, it means the data is protected on 3 separate nodes.

You can set the replication factor while creating the volume by running the pxctl volume create command and passing it the --repl flag:

 pxctl volume create testVol --repl=2

For applications that require node level availability and read parallelism across nodes, Portworx, Inc. recommends setting a replication factor of 2 or 3. Note that the maximum replication factor is 3.

You can also modify the replication factor of a volume by running the pxctl volume ha-update and passing it the following flags:

  • --repl with the new replication factor
  • --node with the ID(s) of the new node(s) to which the data will be replicated. Use a comma-separated list to specify more than one ID.

As an example, here’s how you can update the replication factor of a volume called testVol:

 pxctl volume ha-update --repl=3 --node b1aa39df-9cfd-4c21-b5d4-0dc1c09781d8 testVol

See the updating volumes page for more details.

  • IO Priority: Portworx classifies disks into three different performance levels:

    • High
    • Medium,
    • Low.

Then, it groups the volumes into separate pools. To run a low latency transactional workload like a database, create the volume with the --io_priority flag set to high as in the following example:

 pxctl volume create --io_priority high volume-name

See the class-of-service page to get a better understanding of how performance levels work in Portworx. Additionally, note that Portworx provides an easy way to manage storage pools through the pxctl service pool command.

  • Creation time: indicates the creation date and time of the volume.
  • Shared: this field tells whether the volume is sharedv4 or not. A sharedv4 volume is available to multiple containers running on different hosts at the same time. See the sharedv4 volumes page for more details
  • Status: indicates the status of the volume. Possible values are Up and Pending. Up means that Portworx created the volume successfully. Pending means that Portworx currently creates the volume.
  • State: shows whether the volume is Attached or Detached. Attached means that the volume is attached to a node and you can perform read and write operations on the volume. Detached means that the volume is not used and you can’t perform read and write operation on the volume.
  • Reads: the number of read operations served by the volume.
  • Reads MS: the total amount of time spent doing reads, expressed in milliseconds.
  • Bytes Read: measures the total number of bytes read from the volume.
  • Writes: the number of write operations served by the volume.
  • Writes MS: the total amount of time spent doing write operations, expressed in milliseconds.
  • Bytes Written: represents the total amount of bytes written to the volume.
  • IOs in progress: tells the number of IO operations currently in progress.
  • Bytes used: indicates the amount of space used on the volume, expressed in KiB.
  • Replication Status: tells whether the volume replication feature is disabled (Detached) or enabled (Up).

Inspect multiple volumes

With pxctl, you can also inspect multiple volumes in one command as in the following example:

pxctl volume inspect testVol testVol2
Volume    :  188586323847560484
    Name                 :  testVol
    Size                 :  1.0 GiB
    Format               :  ext4
    HA                   :  1
    IO Priority          :  LOW
    Creation time        :  Jul 2 14:57:11 UTC 2019
    Shared               :  no
    Status               :  up
    State                :  detached
    Reads                :  0
    Reads MS             :  0
    Bytes Read           :  0
    Writes               :  0
    Writes MS            :  0
    Bytes Written        :  0
    IOs in progress      :  0
    Bytes used           :  340 KiB
    Replica sets on nodes:
        Set 0
          Node          : 70.0.29.70 (Pool 0)
    Replication Status     :  Detached

Volume    :  1089720565647069203
    Name                 :  testVol2
    Size                 :  1.0 GiB
    Format               :  ext4
    HA                   :  1
    IO Priority          :  LOW
    Creation time        :  Jul 4 16:37:02 UTC 2019
    Shared               :  no
    Status               :  up
    State                :  detached
    Reads                :  0
    Reads MS             :  0
    Bytes Read           :  0
    Writes               :  0
    Writes MS            :  0
    Bytes Written        :  0
    IOs in progress      :  0
    Bytes used           :  340 KiB
    Replica sets on nodes:
        Set 0
          Node          : 70.0.29.70 (Pool 0)
    Replication Status     :  Detached

Example sequence

Below is an example of PVC creation, followed by creation of a MYSQL service.

  1. Create a PVC:

    cat pvc.yaml
    kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: mysql-data
  annotations:
    volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-class: px-csi-db
spec:
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 2Gi

  2. Create a MYSQL application using the above PVC:

    cat mysql.yaml
    apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: mysql
spec:
  strategy:
    rollingUpdate:
      maxSurge: 1
      maxUnavailable: 1
    type: RollingUpdate
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: mysql
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: mysql
        version: "1"
    spec:
      containers:
      - image: mysql:5.6
        name: mysql
        env:
        - name: MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD
          value: password
        ports:
        - containerPort: 3306
        volumeMounts:
        - name: mysql-persistent-storage
          mountPath: /var/lib/mysql
      volumes:
      - name: mysql-persistent-storage
        persistentVolumeClaim:
          claimName: mysql-data

  3. List the deployment (App) and PVC:

    kubectl get deployment
    NAME    READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
mysql   1/1     1            1           67m
    kubectl get pvc
    NAME           STATUS   VOLUME                                     CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS   AGE
mysql-data     Bound    pvc-6aed84b6-4a18-4774-b569-b36921371ce4   2Gi        RWO            px-csi-db      82m

  4. Describe the PVC:

    kubectl describe pvc mysql-data
    Name:          mysql-data
Namespace:     default
StorageClass:  px-csi-db
Status:        Bound
Volume:        pvc-6aed84b6-4a18-4774-b569-b36921371ce4
Labels:        <none>
Annotations:   pv.kubernetes.io/bind-completed: yes
              pv.kubernetes.io/bound-by-controller: yes
              volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-class: px-csi-db
              volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-provisioner: pxd.portworx.com
Finalizers:    [kubernetes.io/pvc-protection]
Capacity:      2Gi
Access Modes:  RWO
VolumeMode:    Filesystem
Used By:       mysql-6654679c44-qcpmv
Events:        <none>

    The output shows that a CSI storage class is used and bound.

  5. Inspect a volume:

    pxctl volume inspect 949302306981516864
      Volume             :  949302306981516864
  Name               :  pvc-6aed84b6-4a18-4774-b569-b36921371ce4
  Size               :  2.0 GiB
  Format             :  ext4
  HA                 :  3
  IO Priority        :  LOW
  Creation time      :  Oct 28 16:28:10 UTC 2022
  Shared             :  no
  Status             :  up
  State              :  Attached: 1e89712e-13e3-485f-99f8-71365ac19514 (192.168.58.76)
  Last Attached      :  Oct 28 16:42:25 UTC 2022
  Device Path        :  /dev/pxd/pxd949302306981516864
  Labels             :  csi.storage.k8s.io/pv/name=pvc-6aed84b6-4a18-4774-b569-b36921371ce4,csi.storage.k8s.io/pvc/name=mysql-data,csi.storage.k8s.io/pvc/namespace=default,io_profile=db_remote,namespace=default,pvc=mysql-data,repl=3
  Mount Options              :  discard
  Reads              :  51
  Reads MS           :  37
  Bytes Read         :  1105920
  Writes             :  636
  Writes MS          :  12752
  Bytes Written      :  169459712
  IOs in progress    :  0
  Bytes used         :  17 MiB
  Replica sets on nodes:
    Set 0
      Node       : 192.168.58.76 (Pool 8d925483-f658-422c-844a-31df5f03ebcc )
      Node       : 192.168.74.160 (Pool 9b05b828-747d-4f59-988e-246d810d4a07 )
      Node       : 192.168.25.112 (Pool d69592a5-99b4-4bcc-bcdd-46e648a2708a )
  Replication Status     :  Up
  Volume consumers   :
    - Name           : mysql-6654679c44-qcpmv (06228e19-d68f-4c7a-a591-0e0a0130620b) (Pod)
      Namespace      : default
      Running on     : ip-192-168-58-76.us-east-2.compute.internal
      Controlled by  : mysql-6654679c44 (ReplicaSet)
Last edited: Tuesday, May 9, 2023
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