Dell CSM Operator – Installing CSI/CSM made easy

Always trying to get to a smoother experience when using our products – The CSM Operator for Redhat OpenShift is certainly one to showcase. Installation of the CSI driver and relevant CSM modules has never been simpler!

Preparation required to install a CSI driver

Before you can install a Dell CSI driver onto your k8s environment, you need to do some minor preparations. First you need to create a namespace for the driver. In this example I will be using a Powerstore:

oc create ns powerstore

After the creation of the namespace, you will need to create a secret that will tell the CSI driver where to look for the storage array. You can simply google for “Dell CSI powerstore” which will take you to the relevant github page. From there, look into the samples folder to locate the secret example:

From that page, simply find the secret.yaml sample file. Make the required adjustments like specifying the array IP address, Unique ID, username and password and generate the secret:

[root@myhost]# cat secret.yaml
  - endpoint: "https://11.0.0.1/api/rest"
    globalID: "PS1122334455"
    username: "admin"
    password: "Password1"
    skipCertificateValidation: true
    blockProtocol: "ISCSI"

[root@myhost]# oc create secret generic powerstore-config -n powerstore --from-file=config=secret.yaml
secret/powerstore-config created

And now we are ready to go back to the OpenShift GUI to perform the installation.

Installing the CSM Operator

To install the rest, simply go into OpenShift, find the Operator Hub, search for Dell and install the CSM operator using all defaults:

After the installation we need to add the CSI/CSM module specific for PowerStore in this example. In order to do that, find the CSM Operator page with the sample CRDs, and copy the relevant CRD yaml.

Next, simply go to the Container Storage Module Operator and click on “Create ContainerStorageModule”:

Next, just select the YAML view and paste the CRD sample file you copied earlier and click “Create”. DONE! That easy 🙂

Adding a CSM module to the CSI driver

Adding a supported CSM module to the CSI driver is as easy as installing the CSI driver itself. In this demo I will add the CSM “Resiliency” module. Simply redeploy the same CSI driver, but modify the CRD to reflect an “enable” at the Resiliency module. This manifests itself by adding “podmon” sidecar containers to both controllers and node pods:

I also created a video demo so you can see the magic unfold here:

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