Deploying LiteIO Cloud‑Native Block Storage Service on Kubernetes

LiteIO is a high‑performance, cloud‑native block storage service that supports SPDK and LVM storage engines and is designed for hyper‑converged Kubernetes environments.

Basic concepts include StoragePool (a per‑node storage pool), AntstorVolume (a volume allocated from a StoragePool), AntstorSnapshot, AntstorMigration, AntstorDataControl, and AntstorVolumeGroup.

Prerequisites : a root‑access x86 VM (e.g., CentOS 7 on AWS Lightsail, Alibaba Cloud, or a local Linux VM).

VM preparation involves enabling the ELRepo repository, installing a newer long‑term support kernel, and setting it as the default:

# Enable the ELRepo Repository
sudo rpm --import https://www.elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org
sudo rpm -Uvh https://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-7.0-3.el7.elrepo.noarch.rpm
# List available kernels
sudo yum list available --disablerepo='*' --enablerepo=elrepo-kernel
# Install the latest LTS kernel
sudo yum -y --enablerepo=elrepo-kernel install kernel-lt
# Set default kernel and rebuild GRUB
sudo grub2-set-default "CentOS Linux (5.4.261-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64) 7 (Core)"
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
sudo reboot

Install Docker :

sudo yum install -y yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --add-repo https://download.docker.com/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo
sudo yum install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
sudo systemctl start docker

Install Kubernetes components (kubelet, kubeadm, kubectl) and configure SELinux:

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/kubernetes.repo
[kubernetes]
name=Kubernetes
baseurl=https://packages.cloud.google.com/yum/repos/kubernetes-el7-$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://packages.cloud.google.com/yum/doc/rpm-package-key.gpg
exclude=kubelet kubeadm kubectl
EOF
sudo setenforce 0
sudo sed -i 's/^SELINUX=enforcing$/SELINUX=permissive/' /etc/selinux/config
sudo yum install -y kubelet kubeadm kubectl --disableexcludes=kubernetes
sudo systemctl enable --now kubelet

Configure containerd CRI by commenting out disabled_plugins = ["cri"] in /etc/containerd/config.toml and restarting containerd:

# comment line: `disabled_plugins = ["cri"]`
sudo vi /etc/containerd/config.toml
sudo systemctl restart containerd

Initialize the cluster (replace the IP with your VM’s address):

sudo kubeadm init --ignore-preflight-errors Swap --apiserver-advertise-address=172.26.10.67 --pod-network-cidr=10.244.0.0/16
# copy kubeconfig to $HOME/.kube/config
kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coreos/flannel/v0.22.0/Documentation/kube-flannel.yml

If using the SPDK engine, enable hugepages before starting kubelet:

# set hugepage
sudo bash -c "echo 256 > /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages"
sudo systemctl restart kubelet
kubectl get nodes -oyaml | grep hugepages-2Mi

Simple deployment with Kind (single‑node cluster):

# Install kind
[ $(uname -m) = x86_64 ] && curl -Lo ./kind https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/dl/v0.20.0/kind-linux-amd64
chmod +x ./kind
sudo mv ./kind /usr/bin/kind
# Create cluster
kind create cluster --image kindest/node:v1.24.6
# Verify
kubectl get nodes

Deploy LiteIO components by applying the manifests in the repository: kubectl create -f hack/deploy/base The base directory contains namespace, secret, webhook, RBAC, storage‑class, CRDs, disk‑operator, csi‑controller, disk‑agent, and csi‑node manifests.

LVM engine deployment : kubectl create -f hack/deploy/lvm The LVM configmap defines a storage pool named test‑vg with a 1 GiB PV located at /local-storage/pv01.

Create a test Pod and PVC : kubectl create -f hack/deploy/example/pod.yaml Verify that the PVC is bound, the AntstorVolume is ready, and the Pod can see the block device mounted at /test-data:

# verify PVC
kubectl -n obnvmf get pvc
# check AntstorVolume
kubectl -n obnvmf get antstorvolume
# list pods
kubectl -n obnvmf get pods
# exec into pod and check mount
kubectl -n obnvmf exec -it test-pod -- df -h

Delete the PVC and Pod when finished:

kubectl delete -f hack/deploy/example/pod.yaml
kubectl -n obnvmf get antstorvolume   # should show no resources

SPDK engine deployment : kubectl create -f hack/deploy/aio-lvs The aio‑lvs configmap creates an AIO bdev of 1 GiB at /local-storage/aio-lvs and a corresponding LVS storage pool.

After deployment, verify the storage pool status and create another test Pod as above.

Finally, the article invites readers to join the LiteIO open‑source community and provides the GitHub repository link.