Chapter 7. Managing Virtual Data Optimizer volumes using the web console

Procedure

1. Log in to the RHEL 8 web console.

   For details, see Logging in to the web console.

2. Click Storage.

3. Click the menu button, ⋮, next to the LVM2 group in which you want to create a VDO volume.

   

4. Select VDO filesystem volume in the drop-down menu next to the Purpose field.
5. In the Name field, enter a name of the VDO volume without spaces.

6. In the Logical Size bar, set up the size of the VDO volume. You can extend it more than ten times, but consider for what purpose you are creating the VDO volume:

   • For active VMs or container storage, use logical size that is ten times the physical size of the volume.
   • For object storage, use logical size that is three times the physical size of the volume.

   For details, see Deploying VDO.

7. Select the Compression option. This option can efficiently reduce various file formats.

   For details, see Changing the compression settings on an LVM-VDO volume.

8. Select the Deduplication option.

   This option reduces the consumption of storage resources by eliminating multiple copies of duplicate blocks. For details, see Changing the deduplication settings on an LVM-VDO volume.

   

Procedure

1. Log in to the RHEL 8 web console. For details, see Logging in to the web console.
2. Click Storage.
3. Click the LVM2 volume group containing the VDO volume you want to format.
4. Click the menu button, ⋮, at the end of the line with the VDO volume you want to format.

5. Click Format.

   

6. In the Name field, enter the logical volume name.
7. In the Mount Point field, add the mount path.
8. By default, the web console rewrites only the disk header after you finish this dialog. The advantage of this option is the speed of formatting. If you check the Overwrite existing data with zeros option, the web console rewrites the whole disk with zeros. This option is slower because the program has to go through the whole disk. Use this option if the disk includes any sensitive data and you want to rewrite them.

9. In the Type drop-down menu, select a file system:

   • The default option, the XFS file system, supports large logical volumes, switching physical drives online without outage, and growing.

     XFS does not support shrinking volumes. Therefore, you cannot reduce the size of a volume formatted with XFS.

   • The ext4 file system supports logical volumes, switching physical drives online without outage, growing, and shrinking.

   You can also select a version with the LUKS (Linux Unified Key Setup) encryption, which allows you to encrypt the volume with a passphrase.

10. In the At boot drop-down menu, select when you want to mount the volume.

11. Click Format and mount or Format only.

    Formatting can take several minutes depending on the used formatting options and the volume size.

    

Procedure

1. Log in to the RHEL 8 web console.

   For details, see Logging in to the web console.

2. Click Storage.
3. Click your VDO volume in the VDO Devices box.
4. In the VDO volume details, click the Grow button.
5. In the Grow logical size of VDO dialog box, extend the logical size of the VDO volume.

1. Click Grow.