Container Volumes

Defining and controlling container volumes

This content is associated with a legacy version of the Replicated product. For the current Replicated product documentation, see docs.replicated.com.

Container Volumes

The volumes key defines an array of volumes to be created and mounted when using the Replicated Native Scheduler. Only the host_path and container_path keys are required for each volume. When new versions of your container are deployed, the volume will be mounted into the updated container.

Named Volumes: You may create a “named” volume by providing a host_path without a leading “/” (ex. host_path: dbdata) which becomes the name of the volume. On creation, named volumes will link the information inside the container_path into the host_path location and will act as a shared folder between your host and your docker container. Only folders can be named volumes.

Host Volumes: If you would like to have the volume mounted at a specific location on the host then you will provide a host_path value with a leading “/” (ex. host_path: /dbdata). Host volumes will bind-mount the host_path contents into the container_path location and will act as a shared mount between your host and your docker container. Folders or files can be bind-mounted host volumes. The Replicated Native Scheduler will automatically create any host volume directories on the node, if they are not already present.

Required properties:

  • host_path For named volumes, this is the volume name (ex. dbdata). For host volumes, this is the absolute host location for the volume (ex. /dbdata).
  • container_path The absolute location inside the container the volume will bind to (ex. /var/lib/mysql).

Optional properties:

  • permission an octal permission string (defaults to 0644 for files, 0755 for folders).
  • owner uid of the user inside the container.
  • options v2.3.0 optional volume settings in an array of strings, a ro entry puts the volume into read-only mode.
  • is_ephemeral v2.3.5 Ephemeral volumes do not prevent containers from being re-allocated across nodes. Ephemeral volumes will also be excluded from snapshots.
  • is_excluded_from_backup exclude this volume from backup if Snapshots enabled.
  • when v2.31.0 exclude this volume when the template evaluates to false
    volumes:
    - host_path: /dbdata
      container_path: /var/lib/mysql
      permission: "0755"
      owner: "100"
      is_ephemeral: false
      is_excluded_from_backup: true
      options: ["rw"]
      when: '{{repl ConfigOptionEquals "has_local_db_data" "1"}}'

Note: Replicated will only set the permissions and owner when the directory is created. If the directory already exists on the server, then these keys will not be respected.

Replicated supports volumes_from to attach several mounts from a colocated container.

  - source: public
    ...
    name: datastore
    publish_events:
    - name: Datastore started
      trigger: port-listen
      data: '6379'
      subscriptions:
      - component: DBs
        container: alpine
        action: start
  - source: public
    image_name: alpine
    version: 3
    ephemeral: true
    cmd: '["migrate_data.sh"]'
    volumes_from: ["datastore"]

The container using volumes_from must start after any containers it mounts from. This can be controlled with the Replicated Native Scheduler events and orchestration controls. The volumes_from property takes an array of strings where each string identifies a named container running on the same server.