Importing a preexisting EBS volume

Overview

If you already have an AWS Elastic Block Store (EBS) volume to import into GKE on AWS, you can create a PersistentVolume (PV) object and reserve it for a specific PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC).

This page explains how to create a PV by using an existing EBS volume populated with data, and how to use the PV in a Pod. This page is for Operators and Storage specialists who want to configure and manage storage. To learn more about common roles and example tasks that we reference in Google Cloud content, see Common GKE user roles and tasks .

Before you begin

Before completing these steps, you must you must:

• Create a GKE on AWS cluster and configure access to it with kubectl .
• Connect and authenticate to your cluster

Using encrypted EBS volumes

If your EBS volume is encrypted with the AWS Key Management Service (KMS), you need to grant the GKE on AWS control plane AWS IAM role access to your KMS key.

To grant the control plane role access to your key:

1. Find the name of your cluster's control plane role .

2. Choose the AWS KMS key used to encrypt your EBS volume, and add the control plane role as a key user by following the instructions in Allow key users to use the KMS key .

Creating a PersistentVolume for a pre-existing EBS volume

You can import an existing EBS volume by specifying a new PV and adding it to your cluster.

1. Copy the following YAML into a file named existing-volume.yaml :

     apiVersion 
    : 
     
    v1 
    kind 
    : 
     
    PersistentVolume 
    metadata 
    : 
     
    name 
    : 
     
     VOLUME_NAME 
    
     
    annotations 
    : 
     
    pv.kubernetes.io/provisioned-by 
    : 
     
    ebs.csi.aws.com 
    spec 
    : 
     
    capacity 
    : 
     
    storage 
    : 
     
     VOLUME_CAPACITY 
    
     
    accessModes 
    : 
     
    - 
     
    ReadWriteOnce 
     
    persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy 
    : 
     
    Retain 
     
    storageClassName 
    : 
     
     STORAGE_CLASS_NAME 
    
     
    claimRef 
    : 
     
    name 
    : 
     
    my-pvc 
     
    namespace 
    : 
     
    default 
     
    csi 
    : 
     
    driver 
    : 
     
    ebs.csi.aws.com 
     
    volumeHandle 
    : 
     
     EBS_VOLUME_ID 
    
     
    fsType 
    : 
     
     FILE_SYSTEM_TYPE 
    
     
    nodeAffinity 
    : 
     
    required 
    : 
     
    nodeSelectorTerms 
    : 
     
    - 
     
    matchExpressions 
    : 
     
    - 
     
    key 
    : 
     
    topology.ebs.csi.aws.com/zone 
     
    operator 
    : 
     
    In 
     
    values 
    : 
     
    - 
     
     ZONE 
    
    
   

    Replace the following: 
   

   • VOLUME_NAME : The name for your volume.
   • VOLUME_CAPACITY : size of the volume— for example, 30G . For more information on specifying volume capacity in Kubernetes, see the Meaning of memory .

   • STORAGE_CLASS_NAME : the name of the StorageClass that provisions the volume— for example, standard-rwo .

   • EBS_VOLUME_ID : Your EBS volume id . For example, vol-05786ec9ec9526b67 .

   • FS_TYPE : The file system of the volume— for example, ext4 .

   • ZONE : The AWS Availability Zone that hosts the EBS volume— for example, us-east-1c .

2. Apply the YAML to your cluster

    kubectl  
   apply  
   -f  
   existing-volume.yaml 
   

3. Confirm the creation of your PV

    kubectl  
   describe  
   pv  
    volume-name 
    
   

   The output of this command contains the status of the PV.

Using the volume with a PersistentVolumeClaim and Pod

After you have imported your volume, you can create a PVC and a Pod that attaches the PVC.

1. The YAML below creates a PVC and attaches it to a Pod running the Nginx web server. Copy it into a file named nginx.yaml :

     apiVersion 
    : 
     
    v1 
    kind 
    : 
     
    PersistentVolumeClaim 
    metadata 
    : 
     
    name 
    : 
     
    my-pvc 
    spec 
    : 
     
    storageClassName 
    : 
     
     STORAGE_CLASS_NAME 
    
     
    volumeName 
    : 
     
     VOLUME_NAME 
    
     
    accessModes 
    : 
     
    - 
     
    ReadWriteOnce 
     
    resources 
    : 
     
    requests 
    : 
     
    storage 
    : 
     
     VOLUME_CAPACITY 
    
    --- 
    apiVersion 
    : 
     
    v1 
    kind 
    : 
     
    Pod 
    metadata 
    : 
     
    name 
    : 
     
    web-server 
    spec 
    : 
     
    containers 
    : 
     
    - 
     
    name 
    : 
     
    web-server 
     
    image 
    : 
     
    nginx 
     
    volumeMounts 
    : 
     
    - 
     
    mountPath 
    : 
     
    /var/lib/www/html 
     
    name 
    : 
     
    data 
     
    volumes 
    : 
     
    - 
     
    name 
    : 
     
    data 
     
    persistentVolumeClaim 
    : 
     
    claimName 
    : 
     
     PVC_NAME 
    
    
   

   Replace the following:

   • STORAGE_CLASS : The name of the StorageClass from the PersistentVolume you created previously— for example, standard-rwo .
   • VOLUME_NAME
   • VOLUME_CAPACITY
   • PVC_NAME : Name of the PVC— for example, my-pvc .

2. Apply the YAML to your cluster

    kubectl  
   apply  
   -f  
   nginx.yaml 
   

3. Check the status of your Nginx instance with kubectl describe . The output should have a STATUS of Running .

    kubectl  
   describe  
   pod  
   web-server 
   

What's next

• Use additional storage drivers with GKE on AWS.