3. Configure your first object storage
objbaker is the program that provides access to object storage for the cloud gateway software. To start with the configuration you would need access key and secret generated by your provider, if you are using object storage in multi-cloud environment or if the compute engine was not authorized to perform any S3 object access operations.
AWS EC2
For AWS EC2 instance created with IAM role that authorizes S3 operations it may not be required to configure the accessId and accessKey within the software. Instead use the option --accessEC2IAM=ROLE option with objbaker. This will acquire S3 credentials from EC2 machine via IAM role.
Create access file with credentials
Create file v:\etc\.s3wasabi_passwd using notepad and add the access information in this format accessId:accessKey. The accessId could be account ID, and the accessKey is base64 encoded secret.
By starting filename with dot you would avoid Windows adding any .txt extension to the above file. Also make sure there are no extraneous characters or newlines in this file. This file is accessed by Crossmeta programs as /etc/.s3wasabi_passwd, while WIN32 programs access as v:\etc\.s3wasabi_passwd
Location of SSL certficate bundle
For SSL to work the curl library needs to know the location of its CA CERT bundle, which is installed in c:\program files\crossmeta. When you run the objbaker this information is provided with --cacert=ca-bundle.crt option . While running interactively since the startup directory is c:\program files\crossmeta this would work. But when the program is running as NT service the startup directory would be c:\windows\syswow64. In that case either copy ca-bundle.crt to c:\windows\syswow64 or specify full pathname to --cacert option.List buckets with objbaker
Before configuring object disk with Windows, make sure objbaker can list the buckets from your storage account. The baseURL is the most important parameter and should match with access URL of the cloud provider. You should use HTTPS for secure SSL access.
Info
For Azure baseURL will contain the <storage-account-name>.blob.core.windows.net
The baseURL should end with slash character /
The baseURL option can be skipped for Amazon AWS alone
AzureC:\Program Files\crossmeta>objbacker.exe --cacert=ca-bundle.crt --ssl --accessFile=/etc/.s3azure_passwd --s3Type=azure --baseURL=https://zfstest.blob.core.windows.net/ --bucketCommand=list
AWSC:\Program Files\crossmeta>objbacker.exe --cacert=ca-bundle.crt --ssl --accessFile=/etc/.s3amazon_passwd --bucketCommand=list
Google CloudC:\Program Files\crossmeta>objbacker.exe --cacert=ca-bundle.crt --ssl --accessFile=/etc/.s3google_passwd --s3Type=google_s3 --baseURL=https://storage.googleapis.com/ --bucketCommand=list
WasabiC:\Program Files\crossmeta>objbacker.exe --cacert=ca-bundle.crt --ssl --accessFile=/etc/.s3wasabi_passwd --baseURL=https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/ --bucketCommand=list
For troubleshooting add --debug-http to the above command to get detailed REST API output.Configure object storage as VHD
Before configuring object disk with Windows make sure the Crossmeta Fuse driver has started. If required start the driver as follows
FUSEC:\Program Files\crossmeta>net start cxfuse The CROSSMETA FUSE kernel mode driver service was started successfully.
Options to objbaker
Option | ||
---|---|---|
Logical size of VHDX up to 64TB allowed by Windows | 10T | --size=10T |
Block size of object files. Large block size reduces object access costs. This should match file system allocation size for optimal performance | 1MB | --blockSize=1024K |
Directory to use as mount point in Crossmeta drive | mnt | /mnt |
No caching to prevent stale data | --directIo--blockCacheSize=100 | |
Specify desired filename for object disk. This should have extension vhdx for Windows to use it | --filename=file.vhdx | |
S3 access credential file name. Some file in Crossmeta drive. | accessId:accessKey | --accessFile=/etc/.s3wasabi_passwd |
S3 Type option to identify cloud object storage api. The default is amazon_s3. Mandatory option for Azure Blobs | azure google_s3 amazon_s3 | --s3Type=azure |
Region option. This option is mandatory for Amazon S3 | us-west-1 | --region=us-west-1 |
Access URL for the object storage. Must be specified for all S3 object provider other than Amazon Azure blobs contain the storage account name in the URL. | zfstest is the storage account name for Azure | --baseURL=https://zfstest.blob.core.windows.net/ |
Mount object storage bucket
For Windows to make use of object storage bucket we have to intialize the object storage as VHDX image. VHDX is preferred over VHD because of inherent journal feature to protect against unsafe shutdown and also it can support up to 64TB for a single image. This step is performed in foreground interactively to make sure it is working before configuring it as service later. In the following example object storage bucket smbtest1 is being mounted. Please make note of the -f option for foreground. Also for filename we chose as extension .vhdxusing bucket smbtest1 from WasabiC:\Program Files\crossmeta>objbacker.exe --cacert=ca-bundle.crt --accessFile=/etc/.s3wasabi_passwd --authVersion=aws2 --baseURL=https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/ --directIO --noAutoDetect --size=10T --timeout=30 --blockCacheSize=100 --blockCacheThreads=8 --minWriteDelay=5000 --md5CacheSize=1000000 --ssl --blockSize=1024K -o no_pagecache --filename=file.vhdx smbtest1 /mnt -f objbacker.exe: auto-detection disabled; using configured block size 1m and file size 10t INFO: s3backer process 5312 for /mnt started INFO: mounting /mnt
using bucket disk1 from AzureC:\Program Files\crossmeta>objbacker.exe --cacert=ca-bundle.crt --accessFile=/etc/.s3azure_passwd --s3Type=azure --baseURL=https://storageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/ --directIO --noAutoDetect --size=10T --timeout=30 --blockCacheSize=100 --blockCacheThreads=8 --minWriteDelay=5000 --md5CacheSize=1000000 --ssl --blockSize=1024K -o no_pagecache --filename=file.vhdx disk1 /mnt -f objbacker.exe: auto-detection disabled; using configured block size 1m and file size 10t INFO: s3backer process 5512 for /mnt started INFO: mounting /mnt
After the above command finishes the object storage is accessible as V:\mnt\file.vhdx as one giant file with logical capacity as 10TB.qemu-imgC:\Program Files\qemu>dir v:\mnt Volume in drive V is vfsroot Volume Serial Number is 0122-B5C1 Directory of v:\mnt 05/22/2019 07:48 PM <DIR> . 05/22/2019 07:48 PM <DIR> .. 05/22/2019 07:48 PM10,995,116,277,760 file.vhdx 05/22/2019 07:48 PM 1,422 stats 2 File(s) 10,995,116,279,182 bytes 2 Dir(s) 5,242,880 bytes free
Initialize VHDX on the object storage bucket using qemu-img program available in c:\program files\qemu
qemu-imgcd c:\program files\qemu C:\Program Files\qemu> qemu-img create -f vhdx v:\mnt\file.vhdx 10T Formatting 'v:\mnt\file.vhdx', fmt=vhdx size=10995116277760 log_size=1048576 block_size=0
Verify VHDX information
qemu-imgc:\Program Files\qemu> qemu-img info v:\mnt\file.vhdx image: v:\mnt\file.vhdx file format: vhdx virtual size: 10T (10995116277760 bytes) disk size: 10T cluster_size: 33554432
Activate VHDX file as virtual disk in Windows from Administrator PowerShell window
Attach VHDXc:\users\Administrator> mount-diskimage -imagepath v:\mnt\file.vhdx
- Launch diskmgmt.msc to initialize disk for the first time and assign a drive letter. You may create a file system within Disk Management GUI or from Command Prompt.
Create a file system NTFS or ReFS. Use the actual drive letter that was assigned from the above command and allocation size of 1MB is chosen.
Formatc:\users\Administrator> format /fs:ntfs /A:1M /q F:
NTFS allocation size
Windows 2019 supports allocation size of 1MB for NTFS file systems while earlier version limited to 64KB only. This means NTFS created with 1MB allocation size may not be recognized by older Windows.
Detach the virtual disk
Detach VHDXc:\users\Administrator> dismount-diskimage -imagepath v:\mnt\file.vhdx
Stop the objbaker program to proceed configuration as service
From Desktop → Crossmeta command shell running as administrator
Stop objbakerV:\>mount /dev/loop0 on / type ufs (local, read-only) devfs on /dev type devfs (local) \fuse.chan3596 on /mnt type fuse V:\> umount /mnt
The above command would stop the objbacker program that is running inside another Command Prompt Window.
4. Register as NT service
Create service using sc.exe
If everything worked out fine so far we are ready to make this object disk as service now. Pick a service name to start this object disk as NT service program automatically from now on. In this example we register objdisk1 as NT service program.
In the following command line for sc.exe please note that binPath= and displayName= has no space character before = but space character after =
Create serviceC:\Program Files\crossmeta>sc create objdisk1 start= delayed-auto binpath="\"c:\program files\crossmeta\objbacker.exe\" --cacert=\"c:\program files\crossmeta\ca-bundle.crt\" --accessFile=/etc/.s3wasabi_passwd --baseURL=https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/ --directIO --noAutoDetect --size=10T --timeout=30 --blockCacheSize=100 --blockCacheThreads=8 --minWriteDelay=5000 --md5CacheSize=1000000 --ssl --blockSize=1024K -o no_pagecache --filename=file.vhdx smbtest1 /mnt" displayName= "My first object disk smbtest1 from Wasabi" depend= cxfuse [SC] CreateService SUCCESS C:\Program Files\crossmeta>sc qc objdisk1 [SC] QueryServiceConfig SUCCESS SERVICE_NAME: objdisk1 TYPE : 10 WIN32_OWN_PROCESS START_TYPE : 2 AUTO_START (DELAYED) ERROR_CONTROL : 1 NORMAL BINARY_PATH_NAME : "c:\program files\crossmeta\objbacker.exe" --cacert="c:\program files\crossmeta\ca-bundle.crt" --accessFile=/etc/.s3wasabi_passwd --baseURL=https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/ --directIO --noAutoDetect --size=10T --timeout=30 --blockCacheSize=100 --blockCacheThreads=8 --minWriteDelay=5000 --md5CacheSize=1000000 --ssl --blockSize=1024K -o no_pagecache --filename=file.vhdx smbtest1 /mnt LOAD_ORDER_GROUP : TAG : 0 DISPLAY_NAME : My first object disk smbtest1 from Wasabi DEPENDENCIES : cxfuse SERVICE_START_NAME : LocalSystem
Starting the objdisk1 service
Startsc start objdisk1 powershell mount-diskimage -imagepath v:\mnt\file.vhdx
Stopping the objdisk service
From Desktop → Crossmeta command shell running as administrator
Stopv:\> umount /mnt v:\> sc stop objdisk1
5. Automatic Startup
Create startup script
To configure object disk every time the system boots up create a command batch file in c:\program files\crossmeta\s3disks.cmd and add the following to file assuming objdisk1 being the configured service name and /mnt as the mount point.s3disks.cmd filenet start objdisk1 powershell mount-diskimage -imagepath v:\mnt\file.vhdx
Schedule the above as task
To run s3disks.cmd every time the Windows starts use schtasks.exeschtasks.exeschtasks.exe /create /tn "Start Cloud Disks" /ru SYSTEM /Sc ONSTART /tr "\"C:\program files\s3disks.cmd\""
Note how quote characters were escaped while specifying the command line argument to schtasks.exe, since the directory pathname contains space character.
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