Previously we used Ceph which was tightly bundled with Proxmox, and this worked really well. The trouble comes in when you need to update Proxmox and reinstall etc. Then you’re what’s commonly known as between a rock and a hard place. Our solution was to run an independent Ceph cluster, and from Proxmox, connect to this Ceph cluster using RBD. Below are some useful commands for interacting with an independent/external Ceph cluster with RBD from the terminal on a Proxmox node:
To list RBD images from a particular pool:
rbd ls -p YOUR_POOL_NAME -m YOUR_RBD_MONITOR_IP --auth_supported cephx --keyring /etc/pve/priv/ceph/your_ceph_pool_keyring.keyringYour Ceph keyring is normally contained in /etc/ceph/
To create an RBD image on a particular pool:
rbd create --size 5000 --pool YOUR_POOL_NAME YOUR_RBD_IMAGE_NAME -m YOUR_RBD_MONITOR_IP --auth_supported cephx --keyring /etc/pve/priv/ceph/your_ceph_pool_keyring.keyringTo remove an RBD image from a particular pool:
rbd rm YOUR_POOL_NAME/YOUR_RBD_IMAGE_NAME -m YOUR_RBD_MONITOR_IP --auth_supported cephx --keyring /etc/pve/priv/ceph/your_ceph_pool_keyring.keyring