Use FlexVolume to enable a StatefulSet to support persistent storage - Best Practices| Alibaba Cloud Documentation Center

Background information

StatefulSets provides the following benefits:

A stable deployment order: Pods are deployed in sequence from 0 to N-1. Before a pod is deployed, all its predecessors must be in the Running or Ready state.
A stable scale-in order: Pods are scaled in sequence from N-1 to 0. Before a pod is deleted, all its predecessors must be deleted.
Stable and unique network identifiers: After a pod is rescheduled to another node, the PodName and HostName values remain unchanged.
Stable data persistence: After a pod is rescheduled, the pod can still access the same persisted data.

How to use a StatefulSet:

PVCs and PVs are automatically created based on VolumeClaimTemplates.

This topic describes how to manage a stateful application by performing the following operations:

Deploy the stateful application
Scale the stateful application
Delete the stateful application
Manage persistent storage of the stateful application

Prerequisites

Deploy the stateful application

Note volumeClaimTemplates: The system uses this template to create PVCs. The number of PVCs equals the number of replicas that are deployed for the stateful application. The configurations of these PVCs are the same except for the PVC names.

Create a statefulset.yaml file.

Note Set storageClassName to alicloud-disk-ssd, which specifies an Alibaba Cloud standard SSD.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: nginx
  labels:
    app: nginx
spec:
  ports:
  - port: 80
    name: web
  clusterIP: None
  selector:
    app: nginx
---
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: StatefulSet
metadata:
  name: web
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  serviceName: "nginx"
  replicas: 2
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: nginx
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80
          name: web
        volumeMounts:
        - name: disk-ssd
          mountPath: /data
  volumeClaimTemplates:
  - metadata:
      name: disk-ssd
    spec:
      accessModes: [ "ReadWriteOnce" ]
      storageClassName: "alicloud-disk-ssd"
      resources:
        requests:
          storage: 20Gi

Run the following command to deploy the stateful application:
```
kubectl create -f statefulset.yaml
```

Open another command-line interface (CLI) of kubectl and run the following command to check whether the pods are deployed in sequence:

kubectl get pod -w -l app=nginx

Expected output:

NAME         READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
web-0        0/1     Pending   0          0s
web-0        0/1     Pending   0          0s
web-0        0/1     ContainerCreating    0          0s
web-0        1/1     Running   0          20s
web-1        0/1     Pending   0          0s
web-1        0/1     Pending   0          0s
web-1        0/1     ContainerCreating    0          0s
web-1        1/1     Running   0          7s

Run the following command to view the deployed pods:

kubectl get pod

Expected output:

NAME                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
web-0                         1/1     Running   0          6m
web-1                         1/1     Running   0          6m

Run the following command to view the PVCs:

kubectl get pvc

Expected output:

NAME             STATUS   VOLUME                   CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS        AGE
disk-ssd-web-0   Bound    d-2zegw7et6xc96nbojuoo   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   7m
disk-ssd-web-1   Bound    d-2zefbrqggvkd10xb523h   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   6m

Scale the stateful application

Scale out the stateful application

Run the following command to scale out the stateful application to three pods:
```
kubectl scale sts web --replicas=3
```
Expected output:
```
statefulset.apps/web scaled
```

Run the following command to view the pods after the stateful application is scaled out:

kubectl get pod

Expected output:

NAME                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
web-0                         1/1     Running   0          34m
web-1                         1/1     Running   0          33m
web-2                         1/1     Running   0          26m

Run the following command to view the PVCs after the stateful application is scaled out:

kubectl get pvc

Expected output:

NAME             STATUS   VOLUME                   CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS        AGE
disk-ssd-web-0   Bound    d-2zegw7et6xc96nbojuoo   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   35m
disk-ssd-web-1   Bound    d-2zefbrqggvkd10xb523h   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   34m
disk-ssd-web-2   Bound    d-2ze4jx1zymn4n9j3pic2   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   27m

Scale in the stateful application

Run the following command to scale in the stateful application to two pods:
```
kubectl scale sts web --replicas=2
```
Expected output:
```
statefulset.apps/web scaled
```

Run the following command to view the pods after the stateful application is scaled in:

kubectl get pod

Expected output:

NAME                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
web-0                         1/1     Running   0          38m
web-1                         1/1     Running   0          38m

Only two pods are deployed for the stateful application.

Run the following command to view the PVCs after the stateful application is scaled in:

kubectl get pvc

Expected output:

NAME             STATUS   VOLUME                   CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS        AGE
disk-ssd-web-0   Bound    d-2zegw7et6xc96nbojuoo   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   39m
disk-ssd-web-1   Bound    d-2zefbrqggvkd10xb523h   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   39m
disk-ssd-web-2   Bound    d-2ze4jx1zymn4n9j3pic2   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   31m

PVCs and PVs are not deleted together with the pods during the scale-in operation.

Scale out the stateful application again

Run the following command to scale out the stateful application to three pods:
```
kubectl scale sts web --replicas=3
```
Expected output:
```
statefulset.apps/web scaled
```

Run the following command to view the pods after the stateful application is scaled out:

kubectl get pod

Expected output:

NAME                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
web-0                         1/1     Running   0          1h
web-1                         1/1     Running   0          1h
web-2                         1/1     Running   0          8s

Run the following command to view the PVCs after the stateful application is scaled out:

kubectl get pvc

Expected output:

NAME             STATUS   VOLUME                   CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS        AGE
disk-ssd-web-0   Bound    d-2zegw7et6xc96nbojuoo   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   1h
disk-ssd-web-1   Bound    d-2zefbrqggvkd10xb523h   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   1h
disk-ssd-web-2   Bound    d-2ze4jx1zymn4n9j3pic2   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   1h

The newly created pod uses the existing PVC and PV.

Delete the stateful application

Run the following command to view the PVC that is used by the pod named web-1:
```
kubectl describe pod web-1 | grep ClaimName
```
Expected output:
```
ClaimName:  disk-ssd-web-1
```
Run the following command to delete the pod named web-1:
```
kubectl delete pod web-1
```
Expected output:
```
pod "web-1" deleted
```

Run the following command to view the pod:

kubectl get pod

Expected output:

NAME                          READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
web-0                         1/1     Running   0          1h
web-1                         1/1     Running   0          25s
web-2                         1/1     Running   0          9m

The recreated pod has the same name as the deleted pod.

Run the following command to view the PVCs:

kubectl get pvc

Expected output:

NAME             STATUS   VOLUME                   CAPACITY   ACCESS MODES   STORAGECLASS        AGE
disk-ssd-web-0   Bound    d-2zegw7et6xc96nbojuoo   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   1h
disk-ssd-web-1   Bound    d-2zefbrqggvkd10xb523h   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   1h
disk-ssd-web-2   Bound    d-2ze4jx1zymn4n9j3pic2   20Gi       RWO            alicloud-disk-ssd   1h

The recreated pod uses the same PVC as the deleted pod.

Open another CLI of kubectl and run the following command to view how the pod is deleted and recreated:

kubectl get pod -w -l app=nginx

Expected output:

NAME    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
web-0   1/1     Running   0          102m
web-1   1/1     Running   0          69s
web-2   1/1     Running   0          10m
web-1   1/1   Terminating   0     89s
web-1   0/1   Terminating   0     89s
web-1   0/1   Terminating   0     90s
web-1   0/1   Terminating   0     90s
web-1   0/1   Pending   0     0s
web-1   0/1   Pending   0     0s
web-1   0/1   ContainerCreating   0     0s
web-1   1/1   Running   0     20s

Manage persistent storage of the stateful application

Run the following command to view the files in the /data path:
```
kubectl exec web-1 ls /data
```
Expected output:
```
lost+found
```
Run the following command to create a statefulset file in the /data path:
```
kubectl exec web-1 touch /data/statefulset
```
Run the following command to view the files in the /data path of each pod:
```
kubectl exec web-1 ls /data
```
Expected output:
```
lost+found
statefulset
```
Run the following command to delete the pod named web-1:
```
kubectl delete pod web-1
```
Expected output:
```
pod "web-1" deleted
```
Run the following command to verify that the file statefulset exists in the /data path. This indicates that data is persisted to the disk.
```
kubectl exec web-1 ls /data
```
Expected output:
```
lost+found
statefulset
```