1. Connect to newly launched VM instance

  • Using RDP client connect to VM instance with the default account name and initial password configured by the cloud provider.
  • Change the default password to your own password.
  • Optionally create additional users if needed.

2. Start the Crossmeta Drivers

  • Launch Windows Command Prompt or PowerShell in Administrator mode.

  • Navigate to Crossmeta installation directory c:\program files\crossmeta and run the script service_crossmeta.cmd as follows.


    C:\Users\Administrator>cd "\Program Files\crossmeta" 
C:\Program Files\crossmeta>service_crossmeta.cmd status 
cxvfs is STOPPED cxfuse is STOPPED
cxnfs is STOPPED cxhfs is STOPPED 
cxvfsmgr is STOPPED
C:\Program Files\crossmeta>service_crossmeta.cmd start 
Starting Crossmeta kernel driver.
The CROSSMETA Manager service is starting. 
The CROSSMETA Manager service was started successfully. 
Running Crossmeta 2.0.2-RELEASE #240: Mon Apr 8 18:17:44 PDT 2019 on WINNT/10.0_Build 
C:\Program Files\crossmeta>
  • Once Crossmeta drivers have loaded successfully the Crossmeta V: drive will be available for your use


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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.

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.


    C:\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



    C:\Program Files\crossmeta>objbacker.exe  --cacert=ca-bundle.crt  --ssl --accessFile=/etc/.s3amazon_passwd
 --authVersion=aws2  --baseURL=https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/  --bucketCommand=list



    C:\Program Files\crossmeta>objbacker.exe --cacert=ca-bundle.crt --ssl  --accessFile=/etc/.s3google_passwd 
 --s3Type=google_s3  --baseURL=https://storage.googleapis.com/   --bucketCommand=list






    C:\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


    C:\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 Windows10T--size=10T
Block size of object files. Large block size reduces object access costs.  This should match file system allocation size for optimal performance1MB--blockSize=1024K
Directory to use as mount point in Crossmeta drivemnt/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 S3us-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 .vhdx

    C:\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

    After the above command finishes the object storage is accessible as V:\mnt\file.vhdx as one giant file with logical capacity as 10TB.

  • Initialize VHDX on the object storage bucket using qemu-img program available in c:\program files\qemu


    cd c:\program files\qemu
C:\Program Files\qemu> qemu-img create -f vhdx v:\mnt\file.vhdx 10T

  • Verify VHDX information 

    c:\Program Files\qemu> qemu-img info v:\mnt\file.vhdx



  • Activate VHDX file as virtual disk in Windows from Administrator PowerShell window

    c:\users\Administrator> mount-diskimage  -imagepath v:\mnt\file.vhdx




  • 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.

    c:\users\Administrator> format /fs:ntfs /A:1M  /q  F:

    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


    c:\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

    v:\> mount

v:\> umount /mnt

    The above command would stop the objbacker program that is running inside another Command Prompt Window.

  • Register objdisk1 as NT service program
    If everything worked out fine so far we are ready to make this object disk as service now.  In the following command line for sc.exe please note that -binpath=  and -description= has no space character before = but space character after =

    c:\users\Administrator> sc create objdisk1 -binpath= "\"c:\program files\crossmeta\objbacker.exe" -cacert=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" -description= "My first object disk smbtest1 from Wasabi"

sc query objdisk1




  • Starting the objdisk1 service

    c:\users\Administrator> sc create objdisk1 -binpath= "\"c:\program files\crossmeta\objbacker.exe" -cacert=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" -description= "My first object disk smbtest1 from Wasabi"

sc query objdisk1



  • Stopping the objdisk service

    c:\users\Administrator> sc create objdisk1 -binpath= "\"c:\program files\crossmeta\objbacker.exe" -cacert=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" -description= "My first object disk smbtest1 from Wasabi"

sc query objdisk1



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