veda/apps/local-path-provisioner

Local Path Provisioner

Overview

The Local Path Provisioner provides local storage using hostPath volumes. It's useful for:

• Testing and development
• Stateful workloads that don't require high availability
• Single-node scenarios
• Temporary storage needs

Important: This is NOT recommended for production workloads that require:

• High availability
• Data replication
• Cross-node pod mobility
• Disaster recovery

For production, use Ceph block storage (ceph-block StorageClass) instead.

Current Configuration

• Namespace: local-path-storage
• Storage Path: /var/mnt/local-path-provisioner (Talos-compatible path)
• Default StorageClass: false (Ceph is the default)
• Pod Security: privileged (required for hostPath access)
• Sync Wave: -2 (deploys before storage operators)

When to Use Local Path vs Ceph

Use Local Path For:

✅ Development/Testing

• Quick pod restarts on the same node
• No network overhead
• Fast I/O for local development

✅ Node-Specific Data

• Logs collection
• Monitoring agents data
• Cache that can be rebuilt

✅ Temporary Storage

• Build artifacts
• Scratch space
• Non-critical data

Use Ceph Block Storage For:

✅ Production Databases

• PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB
• Requires replication and HA

✅ Stateful Applications

• When pods need to move between nodes
• Data must survive node failures

✅ Critical Data

• Persistent volumes that need backups
• Data requiring disaster recovery

✅ Multi-Replica Apps

• ReadWriteOnce volumes that may reschedule

Architecture & Limitations

┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Node 1                                 │
│  ┌─────────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │ /var/mnt/local-path-provisioner │   │
│  │  └── pvc-abc123/                │   │
│  │       └── data                  │   │
│  └─────────────────────────────────┘   │
│         ▲                               │
│         │ hostPath mount                │
│  ┌──────┴──────┐                        │
│  │ Pod (fixed) │                        │
│  └─────────────┘                        │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘

⚠️  If pod moves to Node 2, data is NOT accessible!

Key Limitations:

1. Node Affinity: Pods are pinned to the node where PVC was created
2. No Replication: Data exists only on one node
3. No HA: If node fails, data is inaccessible until node recovers
4. No Migration: Cannot move volumes between nodes
5. Disk Space: Limited by node's local disk capacity

Storage Classes Comparison

Feature	local-path	ceph-block	ceph-filesystem
HA	❌ No	✅ Yes	✅ Yes
Replication	❌ No	✅ Yes (2x)	✅ Yes (2x)
Multi-node	❌ No	✅ Yes (RWO)	✅ Yes (RWX)
Performance	⚡ Fast	📊 Medium	📊 Medium
Snapshots	❌ No	✅ Yes	✅ Yes
Resize	⚠️ Manual	✅ Auto	✅ Auto
Backup	❌ Difficult	✅ Velero	✅ Velero
Use Case	Dev/Test	Production	Shared Data

Usage Examples

Basic PVC

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: local-test-pvc
  namespace: default
spec:
  storageClassName: local-path
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 10Gi

StatefulSet with Local Path

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: StatefulSet
metadata:
  name: test-app
spec:
  serviceName: test-app
  replicas: 1  # ⚠️  Keep at 1 for local-path
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: test-app
  volumeClaimTemplates:
    - metadata:
        name: data
      spec:
        storageClassName: local-path
        accessModes: ["ReadWriteOnce"]
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 5Gi
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: test-app
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: app
          image: nginx
          volumeMounts:
            - name: data
              mountPath: /data

Pod with Explicit Node Affinity

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: local-path-test
spec:
  # Pin to specific node where PVC exists
  nodeSelector:
    kubernetes.io/hostname: worker1
  
  volumes:
    - name: data
      persistentVolumeClaim:
        claimName: local-test-pvc
  
  containers:
    - name: test
      image: busybox
      command: ["sh", "-c", "sleep 3600"]
      volumeMounts:
        - name: data
          mountPath: /data

Recommendations

1. Storage Path Configuration ✅

Current path /var/mnt/local-path-provisioner is correct for Talos Linux:

• Talos only allows persistent storage in /var
• This path persists across reboots
• Properly configured in your setup

2. Not Default StorageClass ✅

Good decision to keep ceph-block as default:

storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class: "false"

This ensures:

• PVCs without explicit storageClassName use Ceph
• Production workloads default to HA storage
• Local path is opt-in only

3. Use Cases for Your Cluster

Good Uses:

# Development namespace with local-path default
apiVersion: v1
kind: Namespace
metadata:
  name: dev-test
  annotations:
    # All PVCs in this namespace can use local-path
    storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class: "local-path"

---
# Prometheus node exporter temp storage
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: node-exporter-data
spec:
  storageClassName: local-path
  accessModes: [ReadWriteOnce]
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 5Gi

Bad Uses (Use Ceph Instead):

# ❌ Don't do this - use ceph-block
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: postgres-data  # Database needs HA!
spec:
  storageClassName: local-path  # ❌ Wrong choice
  
# ✅ Do this instead
spec:
  storageClassName: ceph-block  # ✅ Right choice

4. Monitoring Storage Usage

# Check PVs and their node
kubectl get pv -o custom-columns=NAME:.metadata.name,STORAGECLASS:.spec.storageClassName,NODE:.spec.nodeAffinity.required.nodeSelectorTerms[0].matchExpressions[0].values[0],SIZE:.spec.capacity.storage

# Check disk usage on nodes
talosctl -n <node-ip> df | grep local-path-provisioner

# List all local-path PVCs
kubectl get pvc -A --field-selector spec.storageClassName=local-path

5. Migration Strategy

If you need to migrate from local-path to Ceph:

# 1. Create new PVC with ceph-block
kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: data-ceph
  namespace: default
spec:
  storageClassName: ceph-block
  accessModes: [ReadWriteOnce]
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 10Gi
EOF

# 2. Use a temporary pod to copy data
kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: data-migration
spec:
  volumes:
    - name: source
      persistentVolumeClaim:
        claimName: data-local-path
    - name: dest
      persistentVolumeClaim:
        claimName: data-ceph
  containers:
    - name: migrate
      image: ubuntu
      command: ["sh", "-c", "cp -av /source/* /dest/ && echo 'Done'"]
      volumeMounts:
        - name: source
          mountPath: /source
        - name: dest
          mountPath: /dest
EOF

# 3. Verify data, then update your app to use new PVC

6. Cleanup Old PVCs

Local path PVs can accumulate. Regular cleanup:

# List unused PVCs
kubectl get pvc -A --field-selector status.phase=Bound

# Delete unused PVCs (will also remove hostPath data)
kubectl delete pvc <pvc-name> -n <namespace>

# Cleanup orphaned directories on nodes (if needed)
talosctl -n <node-ip> ls /var/mnt/local-path-provisioner

7. Resource Limits

Consider node disk capacity:

# Check available space on each node
for node in $(kubectl get nodes -o name | cut -d/ -f2); do
  echo "=== $node ==="
  talosctl -n $node df | grep "/$"
done

# Set PVC size limits based on node capacity
# Example: If node has 100GB free, don't create PVCs > 50GB

Troubleshooting

PVC Stuck in Pending

# Check events
kubectl describe pvc <pvc-name> -n <namespace>

# Common causes:
# 1. No nodes have enough disk space
# 2. Provisioner pod not running
kubectl get pods -n local-path-storage

Pod Can't Mount Volume

# Check if pod is on same node as PV
kubectl get pod <pod-name> -o jsonpath='{.spec.nodeName}'
kubectl get pv <pv-name> -o jsonpath='{.spec.nodeAffinity}'

# If different nodes, delete and recreate pod
# (pod will reschedule to correct node)

Disk Space Issues

# Check node disk usage
kubectl get nodes -o custom-columns=NAME:.metadata.name,STORAGE:.status.allocatable.ephemeral-storage

# Free up space by deleting old PVCs
kubectl get pvc -A --sort-by=.metadata.creationTimestamp

Best Practices

1. ✅ Use for ephemeral workloads only - Anything that can afford data loss
2. ✅ Set PVC size limits - Prevent filling up node disks
3. ✅ Monitor disk usage - Set up alerts for node disk space
4. ✅ Document dependencies - Note which apps use local-path and why
5. ✅ Plan for migration - Have a strategy to move to Ceph if needed
6. ❌ Don't use for databases - Use ceph-block instead
7. ❌ Don't use for multi-replica apps - Pods will be pinned to one node
8. ❌ Don't assume HA - Data is lost if node fails

Decision Tree

Need persistent storage?
    │
    ├─ Is data critical? ──→ YES ──→ Use ceph-block
    │
    ├─ Need HA/replication? ──→ YES ──→ Use ceph-block
    │
    ├─ Pod needs to move between nodes? ──→ YES ──→ Use ceph-block
    │
    ├─ Multiple replicas need same data? ──→ YES ──→ Use ceph-filesystem
    │
    ├─ Development/testing only? ──→ YES ──→ Consider local-path
    │
    └─ Temporary/cache data? ──→ YES ──→ Consider local-path or emptyDir

Summary

Local path provisioner is included in your cluster but should be used sparingly:

✅ When to use: Dev/test, non-critical data, node-specific storage ❌ When NOT to use: Production databases, HA apps, critical data

Your configuration is correct:

• Talos-compatible path ✅
• Not default StorageClass ✅
• Privileged pod security ✅
• Automated prune enabled ✅

For most production workloads, stick with ceph-block (your default).