Version 3.1
The Blockbridge volume plugin is available as a "Managed Docker Plugin" for Docker 1.13+ and as a "Legacy Plugin" for Docker 1.12 and earlier. Both options run as a container. The Managed plugin is preferred, as installation and lifecycle management of the plugin is taken care of by Docker natively. The Blockbridge Managed Volume Plugin is available both on the Docker Hub and the Docker Store as a Docker Certified Plugin.
Why use a Blockbridge storage backend? Blockbridge enables tenant isolation, automated provisioning, encryption, secure deletion, snapshots and QoS for any storage backend: on local storage or with any storage vendor over any protocol.
The Blockbridge volume plugin is a full-featured volume plugin for Docker, enabling multi-host access to block storage data volumes. Many functions are available through the native Docker API and command line tools. More advanced functionality is accessible via the API exposed by the Blockbridge Volume Driver and accompanying command lines tools.
The table below presents the base feature list along with interface support guidelines.
| Blockbridge Feature | Via Docker API | Via Blockbridge API |
|---|---|---|
| Create Volume | Yes | Yes |
| Inspect Volume | Yes | Yes |
| List Volumes | Yes | Yes |
| Remove Volume | Yes | Yes |
| Secure Transport Volumes | Yes | Yes |
| Authenticated Volumes | Yes | Yes |
| Encrypted Volumes | Yes | Yes |
| QoS Volumes | Yes | Yes |
| Create Volume Profile | – | Yes |
| Inspect Volume Profile | – | Yes |
| List Volume Profiles | – | Yes |
| Remove Volume Profiles | – | Yes |
| Volume Backup | – | Yes |
| Volume Restore | Yes | Yes |
| Inspect Backup | – | Yes |
| List Backups | – | Yes |
| Remove Backup | – | Yes |
$ docker plugin install --alias blockbridge blockbridge/volume-plugin BLOCKBRIDGE_API_HOST="YOUR HOST" \
BLOCKBRIDGE_API_KEY="YOUR KEY"
The plugin requires two environment variables to be set: BLOCKBRIDGE_API_HOST to point to the Blockbridge backend, and BLOCKBRIDGE_API_KEY as the access token to be used. For a quick-start, use the Blockbridge Storage Container as your backend. Please see https://github.com/blockbridge/blockbridge-simulator for the Blockbridge container quick-start setup.
- Blockbridge Volume Plugin for Docker
For full management of the Blockbridge Volume Plugin, use the Blockbridge volumectl command, available as a container.
It it recommended to set a shell alias:
$ alias volumectl='docker run --rm -v /run/docker/plugins:/run/docker/plugins blockbridge/volumectl'
$ volumectl
Usage:
volumectl [OPTIONS] SUBCOMMAND [ARG] ...
Parameters:
SUBCOMMAND subcommand
[ARG] ... subcommand arguments
Subcommands:
volume manage volumes
profile manage volume profiles
backup manage volume backups
version volumectl version
Global options (8 hidden):
-h, --help print help (use --verbose to show hidden options)
--verbose enable verbose output
--debug enable additional debug
--raw, -R enable raw output
--yaml print yaml for raw output
Create a volume by specifying the driver as blockbridge (or the alias you
specified when the plugin was installed). The Blockbridge volume driver
supports multiple volume options and provisioning attributes to be specified.
$ volumectl volume create --name testvol
== Volume: testvol
user default
capacity 1GiB
The volume is provisioned according to the options specified. As Blockbridge
is multi-tenant storage, a User is always required. The Blockbridge Storage
Container creates a default user for ease-of-use with the plugin.
The storage profile to use for the volume. A storage profile contains volume
create options that make specifying the options easier as a group. See below
for full description. The Blockbridge Storage Container creates a default
profile.
If a default profile exists, this parameter is Optional.
Parameter name: profile
Required. The user (tenant) to provision the volume for.
Parameter name: user
Required. The volume capacity.
Parameter name: capacity
Optional. The volume type. This is defined by the backend and determines certain volume characteristics, such as IOPS rating, performance, etc.
Parameter name: type
Optional. Depends on type specified. The volume quality of service (QoS).
This is a reserved, guaranteed minimum IOPS performance of the volume. It
requires QoS configuration on the backend.
Parameter name: iops
Optional. Blockbridge volumes support transport security. Specify tls to
access your volumes over the network with TLS.
Parameter name: transport
Optional. The volume source to restore from. On volume create, restore from the specified backup.
Parameter name: from_backup
Optional. If the volume is configured for authentication, specify the one-time-password (OTP) in order to access the volume.
Parameter name: otp
In addition to the required volume options, volume provisioning attributes can be specified to determine particular qualities of the storage to provision from.
These attributes are configured by an administrator on the Blockbridge storage backend, and then specified by the volume driver as query parameters.
Attributes such as SSD, IOPS 30000, Rack 42, New York, Chicago, Production, all identify unique sets of storage pools.
Specifying provisioning attributes provides an automated and fundamental way to describe the exact storage characteristics you want to provision for your volume.
Parameter name: attributes
$ volumectl volume create --name vol1 --user default --capacity 32GiB --type gp
== Volume: vol1
type gp
user default
capacity 32GiB
$ volumectl volume create --name vol2 --user default --capacity 32GiB --type provisioned --iops 10000
== Volume: vol2
type piops
user default
capacity 100GiB
iops 10000
$ volumectl volume create --name vol3 --user default --capacity 1TiB --type piops --iops 20000
== Volume: vol3
type piops
user default
capacity 1TiB
iops 20000
There are two ways in Docker to create a volume, either explicitly via docker volume create or implicitly at docker run time.
Create a blockbridge volume:
$ docker volume create --driver blockbridge --name datavol --opt user=block --opt capacity=32GiB
Once a default profile has been configured (see below), create a blockbridge volume:
$ docker run --volume-driver blockbridge -v datavol:/data -it busybox sh
NOTE: you cannot pass volume options on the commandline during docker run, these can only be specified explicitly with docker volume create --opt, or a Blockbridge default volume profile must be setup. If doing an implicit volume create, a default profile must be setup
Reference existing Blockbridge volume at docker run:
$ docker run -v datavol:/data -it busybox sh
$ docker volume ls
$ docker volume inspect datavol
Blockbridge volume profiles are a way to describe different sets of volume options and provisioning attributes as a Storage Profile or Storage Template. Instead of specifying each individual option every time a volume is created, a volume profile can be referenced.
Create a profile with the volume driver:
$ volumectl profile create --name profile-test --user default --capacity 32GiB
== Profile: profile-test
user default
capacity 32GiB
transport insecure
Reference the profile to create a volume. Each volume that uses this profiletest will be created for the default user with a capacity of 32GiB.
$ docker volume create --driver blockbridge --name datavol2 --opt profile=profile-test
By naming a profile default, it will be used if no other profile is
specified. NOTE: the Blockbridge Storage Container already creates a default
profile.
Create a default profile:
$ volumectl profile create --name default --user default --capacity 32GiB --type gp2
The power of volume profiles comes from defining sets of options and defining storage provisioning attributes. For example, you may have different classes of storage, Gold and Silver. You may have storage in different availability zones, different racks in a datacenter, different storage media (ssd, spinners), and for different users.
Define profiles that make sense for your environment.
$ volumectl profile create --name gold --user default --type provisioned-iops --iops 10000 --capacity 1TiB +ssd +production +multipath +high-iops
$ volumectl profile create --name us-east --user default --capacity 10GiB +us-east +ssd -production
$ volumectl profile create profile create --name rack42 --user block --capacity 16GiB +rack42
$ volumectl profile ls
$ volumectl profile inspect rack42
$ volumectl profile --help
Blockbridge volumes are accessible on any host, with no data copy required.
Backup any volume directly to any S3-compatible object store. Your filesystem is frozen, a snapshot is taken, and your block device is converted to objects. All operations take place on the Blockbridge backend, so your backup is taken directly from your data. No host dependencies are required, and if your host crashes during your backup, the backup still takes place successfully. Backups are managed directly via the Blockbridge volume driver. Specify a volume profile to manage backups for, or with none specified the default is used.
Backup a volume with the volume driver
$ volumectl backup testvol
Restore a volume that was backed up. Use standard volume create options with a backup source specified.
$ volumectl volume create --name testvol-restore --from-backup testvol-backup
List backups for default profile.
$ volumectl backup ls
List backups for specified profile.
$ volumectl backup ls --profile profile-test
$ volumectl backup inspect datavol-backup
$ volumectl backup rm datavol-backup
The Blockbridge storage backend is available as a simulator running as a Docker container.
For Docker version 1.12 or earlier, the Blockbridge Volume Driver is available as a legacy plugin. A compose file is available to start the driver (as a container). For most cases, using the Docker compose file will start the volume driver, and connect to the Blockbridge simulator.
docker-compose up
For running against Blockbridge storage (not the simulator), or for more complicated setups, additional configuration may be required. A startup script is provided for these cases.
Two environment variables are required in order to use the startup script:
BLOCKBRIDGE_API_HOST
BLOCKBRIDGE_API_KEY
Set these environment variables to point to the Blockbridge backend storage, and to authenticate with the management API. The Blockbridge simulator, or any other Blockbridge storage can be configured for use with the volume driver.
Blockbridge is Elastic Block Storage for everyone. Run Blockbridge on bare-metal, on a VM, or in a container, in any cloud, on any provider. Access your data directly from any Linux or Windows host as a standard block device, or use it as a Docker volume through the volume plugin in a swarm. Manage your storage via Web UI, cross-platform command-line tools, or REST API. See https://blockbridge.com for more information and to download fully functional trial software, or contact us at info@blockbridge.com with any questions. We’d love to hear from you!
Please let us know what you think! Contact us at support@blockbridge.com or on github.