Connect file storage to a cloud server in another pool

If you are planning to use file storage for backups, we recommend creating the storage and the cloud server in pools from different availability zones or regions. This will increase system fault tolerance. If the file storage and the cloud server are in different pools, you must configure private L3 network connectivity via a global router.

1. Create a global router.

2. Connect a network and subnet for the cloud server to the global router.

3. Connect a network and subnet for the file storage to the global router.

4. Assign an IP address to the cloud server.

5. Specify a route on the cloud server.

6. Specify a route in the file storage subnet.

7. Create file storage.

8. Mount the file storage to the cloud server.

See an example of connecting file storage to a cloud server in another pool.

If you need to increase disk space using file storage, we recommend creating the storage in the same pool as the cloud server. Read more in the instruction Connect file storage to a cloud server in one pool.

Example of connecting file storage to a cloud server

For example, you need to connect file storage in the ru-2 pool to a cloud server in the ru-8 pool.

1. Create a global router.

2. Connect two private networks to the global router — 192.168.0.0/29 with a gateway of 192.168.0.1 for the ru-8 pool and 172.16.0.0/29 with a gateway of 172.16.0.1 for the ru-2 pool.

3. Assign an address from the 192.168.0.0/29 subnet to the cloud server, for example, 192.168.0.2.

4. Specify a route on the cloud server in the ru-8 pool — to the 172.16.0.0/29 subnet via the gateway 192.168.0.1.

5. Create file storage in the 172.16.0.0/29 subnet.

6. Mount the file storage to the cloud server.

1. Create a global router

1. In the Control panel, in the top menu, click Products and select Global Router.
2. Click Create router. A limit of five global routers is set for each account.
3. Enter the router name.
4. Click Create.
5. If the router was created with the status ERROR or is stuck in one of the statuses, create a ticket.

2. Connect the network and subnet for the cloud server to the router

You need to connect the network and subnet to the global router for the project and cloud platform pool where the cloud server is created.

You can connect a new or existing network to the router if it is not already connected to any of the account's global routers.

Connect a new network

1. In the Control panel, on the top menu, click Products and select Global Router.

2. Open the router page → Networks tab.

3. Click Create network.

4. Enter a network name. It will only be used in the control panel.

5. Select the Cloud Platform service.

6. Select the network location.

7. Select a project.

8. Enter a subnet name. It will only be used in the control panel.

9. Enter the CIDR — the IP address and subnet mask. The subnet must meet the following conditions:

   • belong to the RFC 1918 private address range: 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16;
   • be at least /29 in size, as three addresses will be occupied by Servercore network equipment;
   • does not overlap with other subnets added to this router — there must be no identical IP addresses within the subnets of a single router;
   • if a Managed Kubernetes cluster on cloud servers is to be added to the global router network, the subnet must not overlap with the 10.10.0.0/16, 10.96.0.0/12, 10.250.0.0/16 and 10.251.0.0/24. If a cluster on dedicated servers is to be added to the network — with ranges 10.10.0.0/16, 10.222.0.0/16, 10.250.0.0/16, 10.251.0.0/24 and 172.250.0.0/14. These subnets are used for internal addressing in Managed Kubernetes, and using them may cause conflicts in the global router network.

10. Enter the gateway IP or leave the first address from the subnet, which is assigned by default. Do not assign this address to your devices to avoid disrupting network operations.

11. Enter the service IPs or leave the last addresses from the subnet, which are assigned by default. Do not assign these addresses to your devices to avoid disrupting network operations.

12. Click Create network.

13. Optional: check the network topology on the global router. In the Control panel, on the top menu, click Products → Global Router → router page → Network map.

Connect an existing network

1. Ensure the network is not already added to any of the account's global routers. In the control panel, on the top menu, click Products → Cloud Servers → Network → tab Private networks → check that the network card does not have the Global Router tag.

2. Ensure the subnet meets the following conditions:

   • belongs to the RFC 1918 private address range: 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16;
   • be at least /29 in size, as three addresses will be occupied by Servercore network equipment;
   • does not overlap with other subnets added to this router: the IP addresses of each subnet on the router must not overlap with the IP addresses of other subnets on the router;
   • if a Managed Kubernetes cluster on cloud servers is to be added to the global router network, the subnet must not overlap with the 10.10.0.0/16, 10.96.0.0/12, 10.250.0.0/16 and 10.251.0.0/24. If a cluster on dedicated servers is to be added to the network — with ranges 10.10.0.0/16, 10.222.0.0/16, 10.250.0.0/16, 10.251.0.0/24 and 172.250.0.0/14. These subnets are used for internal addressing in Managed Kubernetes, and using them may cause conflicts in the global router network.

3. In the Control panel, on the top menu, click Products and select Cloud Servers.

4. Go to Network → tab Private networks.

5. From the menu of the network, select Connect to Global Router.

6. Select a global router.

7. For each subnet of the network, enter the IP address to be assigned to the router, or leave the first available address from the subnet, which is assigned by default. Do not assign this address to your devices to avoid disrupting network operations. The last two available subnet addresses will be reserved as service addresses.

8. Click Connect. Do not close the window until you see a message stating that the network has been connected. After that, in the control panel:

   • the network will appear in the section Servercore Global Router on the page of the router you connected it to;
   • in the section Cloud Servers → Network → on the tab Private networks the network will have a Global Router tag.

3. Connect the network and subnet for the file storage to the router

You need to connect the network and subnet to the global router for the project and cloud platform pool where the file storage will be created later.

You can connect a new network to the router or an existing network if it is not yet connected to any of the account's global routers.

Connect a new network

1. In the control panel, from the top menu, click Products and select Global Router.

2. Open the router page → Networks tab.

3. Click Create network.

4. Enter a network name. It will only be used in the control panel.

5. Select the Cloud Platform service.

6. Select the location where the file storage will be created.

7. Select the project where the file storage will be created.

8. Enter a subnet name. It will only be used in the control panel.

9. Enter the CIDR — the IP address and subnet mask. The subnet must meet the following conditions:

   • belong to the RFC 1918 private address range: 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16;
   • be at least /29 in size, as three addresses will be occupied by Servercore network equipment;
   • do not overlap with other subnets added to this router — there must be no duplicate IP addresses in the subnets of a single router;
   • if a Managed Kubernetes cluster on cloud servers is to be included in the global router network, the subnet must not overlap with the 10.10.0.0/16, 10.96.0.0/12, 10.250.0.0/16 and 10.251.0.0/24. If a cluster on dedicated servers is to be included in the network — with the 10.10.0.0/16, 10.222.0.0/16, 10.250.0.0/16, 10.251.0.0/24 and 172.250.0.0/14. These subnets are used for Managed Kubernetes internal addressing, and using them may lead to conflicts in the global router network.

10. Enter the gateway IP address or leave the first address from the subnet, which is assigned by default. Do not assign this address to your devices to avoid network disruption.

11. Enter the service IP addresses or leave the last addresses from the subnet, which are assigned by default. Do not assign these addresses to your devices to avoid network disruption.

12. Click Create network.

13. Optional: check the network topology on the global router. In the control panel, from the top menu, click Products → Global Router → router page → Network map.

Connect an existing network

1. Ensure that the network has not yet been added to any of the account's global routers. In the control panel, from the top menu, click Products → Cloud Servers → Network → Private networks tab → check that the Global Router tag is not present on the network card. Global Router.

2. Ensure that the subnet meets the following conditions:

   • belong to the RFC 1918 private address range: 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12 or 192.168.0.0/16;
   • be at least /29 in size, as three addresses will be occupied by Servercore network equipment;
   • do not overlap with other subnets added to this router — there must be no duplicate IP addresses in the subnets of a single router;
   • if a Managed Kubernetes cluster on cloud servers is to be included in the global router network, the subnet must not overlap with the 10.10.0.0/16, 10.96.0.0/12, 10.250.0.0/16 and 10.251.0.0/24. If a cluster on dedicated servers is to be included in the network — with the 10.10.0.0/16, 10.222.0.0/16, 10.250.0.0/16, 10.251.0.0/24 and 172.250.0.0/14. These subnets are used for Managed Kubernetes internal addressing, and using them may lead to conflicts in the global router network.

3. In the control panel, from the top menu, click Products and select Cloud Servers.

4. Go to the Network section → Private networks tab.

5. From the menu of the network, select Connect to Global Router.

6. Select a global router.

7. For each subnet in the network, enter the IP address to be assigned to the router, or leave the first available address from the subnet, which is assigned by default. Do not assign this address to your own devices to avoid network disruption. The last two available subnet addresses will be reserved as service addresses.

8. Click Connect. Do not close the window until a message appears confirming that the network has been connected. After that, in the control panel:

   • the network will appear in the Servercore Global Router section on the page of the router you connected it to. You can view it in the control panel: from the top menu, click Products → Global Router → section Servercore Global Router → router page;
   • the network will have a Global Router tag. You can view it in the control panel: from the top menu, click Products → Cloud Servers → cloud server page → section Network → network card.

4. Assign an IP address to the cloud server

Configure the local port on the cloud server that is included in the global router network. Assign an IP address from the subnet you connected to the global router for the cloud server in step 2.

1. Add the cloud server to the created global router subnet. If you do not have a cloud server yet, create one. When creating, select the global router subnet as the subnet.

2. Apply changes depending on the Apply changes port parameter. You can view the parameter value in the control panel: from the top menu, click Products → Cloud Servers → cloud server page → Ports tab → Port settings:

   • When rebooting the server — programmatically reboot the cloud server or manually make changes to the network configuration file on the server;
   • Manually in the network configuration file on the server — manually make changes to the network configuration file on the server.

5. Specify a route on the cloud server

In the subnet that you connected to the global router for the cloud server in step 2, you need to add a static route to the subnet that you connected to the global router for File Storage in step 3.

Use the Configure static routes in a subnet section of the Static Routes instructions.

6. Specify a route in the file storage subnet

In the subnet that you connected to the global router for File Storage in step 3, you need to add a static route to the subnet that you connected to the global router for the cloud server in step 2.

Use the Configure static routes in a subnet section of the Static Routes instructions.

7. Create file storage

Control panel

1. In the Control panel, from the top menu click Products and select File Storage.

2. Click Create Storage.

3. Enter a name for the storage or keep the automatically generated one.

4. Select a location where the storage will be created.

   If you need to increase disk space with file storage, select the location where your cloud server or Managed Kubernetes cluster is located.

   If you plan to use the storage for backups, we recommend choosing a location different from your primary infrastructure location to increase fault tolerance.

5. Fill in the sections:

   • Subnet
   • Settings
   • Access rules

6. Check the cost of the file storage.

7. Click Create.

Subnet

1. Select a private subnet where the storage will be located. The subnet type depends on what you need to connect the storage to:

   • cloud private subnet — the storage will be available for cloud servers and Managed Kubernetes clusters only in the pool you selected when creating the storage. To connect the storage, you will only need to mount it;
   • global router subnet — the storage will be available for dedicated servers, as well as cloud servers and Managed Kubernetes clusters that are in other pools. To connect the storage, you need to configure network connectivity between the server or cluster and the storage via the global router. See examples of configuring network connectivity in the instructions in the Connect File Storage section.

   Once the storage is created, the subnet cannot be changed.

2. Enter the private IP address for the storage or leave the first available address from the subnet, which is assigned by default. Once the storage is created, the IP address cannot be changed.

Settings

1. Select the file storage type:

   • HDD Basic,
   • SSD Universal,
   • SSD Fast.

   Once the storage is created, the storage type cannot be changed.

2. Specify the storage size: from 50 GB to 50 TB. After creation, you can increase the file storage, but you cannot decrease it.

3. Select a protocol:

   • NFSv4 — for connecting storage to servers running Linux or other Unix-based OS;
   • CIFS SMBv3 — for connecting storage to servers running Windows OS.

   Once the storage is created, the protocol cannot be changed.

Access rules

NFSv4

1. Configure access rules for the file storage:

   • accessible to everyone — the storage will be available for any IP address in the private subnet where it is created;
   • access restricted — the storage will be available only for specific IP addresses or private subnets. If you create the file storage without rules, access will be restricted for all IP addresses.

2. If you selected Access restricted, click Add rule.

3. Enter the IP address or CIDR of the private subnet and select the access level.

   After creating the storage, you can configure new access rules.

CIFS SMBv3

1. Configure access rules for the file storage:

   • accessible to everyone — the storage will be available for any IP address in the private subnet where it is created;
   • access restricted — the storage will be available only for specific IP addresses or private subnets. If you create the file storage without rules, access will be restricted for all IP addresses.

2. If you selected Access restricted, click Add rule.

3. Enter the IP address or CIDR of the private subnet.

   After creating the storage, you can configure new access rules.

OpenStack CLI

1. Open the OpenStack CLI.

2. Create a file storage network:

   openstack share network create \
     --name <share_network> \
     --neutron-net-id <net_uuid> \
     --neutron-subnet-id <subnet_uuid>

   Specify:

   • <share_network> — the file storage network name;
   • <net_uuid> — the ID of the private or public network to which the file storage will be connected. You can view the list of networks using the command openstack network list;
   • <subnet_uuid> — the subnet ID. You can view the list of subnets using the command openstack subnet list.

3. Create file storage:

   openstack share create <share_protocol> <share_size>\
     --name <share_name> \
     --share-network <share_network_id> \
     --share-type <share_type_name> 

   Specify:

   • <share_protocol> — the file storage connection protocol, NFSv4 or CIFS SMBv3;
   • <share_size> — the file storage size in GB;
   • <share_name> — the file storage name;
   • <share_network_id> — the ID of the file storage network that you created in step 2. You can view the list of file storage networks using the command openstack share network list;
   • <share_type_name> — file storage type. You can view the list of types using the command openstack share type list.

Terraform

Use the Create File Storage guide in the Terraform documentation.

8. Mount the file storage to the cloud server

The mounting process depends on the operating system on the server and the file storage protocol: NFSv4 or CIFS SMBv3.

NFSv4

Linux

1. Connect to the cloud server.

2. Open the CLI.

3. Install the package for the NFS protocol:

   sudo apt install nfs-common

4. Create a folder for mounting the storage:

   sudo mkdir -p /mnt/nfs

5. Mount the file storage:

   sudo mount -vt nfs "<filestorage_ip_address>:/shares/share-<mountpoint_uuid>" /mnt/nfs

   Specify:

   • <filestorage_ip_address> — file storage IP address. You can view it in the control panel: from the top menu, click Products → File Storage → storage page → Settings tab → IP field;
   • <mountpoint_uuid> — mount point ID. You can view it in the control panel: from the top menu, click Products → File Storage → storage page → Connection block → GNU/Linux tab.

Windows

To work with file storage from Windows, we recommend using file storage with the CIFS protocol. If you need to connect storage with the NFSv4 protocol, install and use a client that supports this protocol, then mount the file storage. To mount the file storage, refer to the documentation of your chosen client.

File storage only works with the NFSv4 client version. By default, Windows OS supports NFSv2 and NFSv3 client versions. For more information on NFS versions, see the NFS Overview article in the Microsoft documentation.

CIFS SMBv3

Linux

1. Connect to the cloud server.

2. Install the package for the CIFS protocol:

   sudo apt install cifs-utils

3. Create a folder for mounting the storage:

   sudo mkdir -p /mnt/cifs

4. Mount the file storage:

   sudo mount.cifs -o guest //<filestorage_ip_address>/share-<mountpoint_uuid> /mnt/cifs

   Specify:

   • <filestorage_ip_address> — file storage IP address. You can view it in the control panel: from the top menu, click Products → File Storage → storage page → Settings tab → IP field;
   • <mountpoint_uuid> — mount point ID. You can view it in the control panel: from the top menu, click Products → File Storage → storage page → Connection block → GNU/Linux tab.

Windows

1. Connect to the cloud server.

2. Open the CLI.

3. Mount the file storage:

   net use X: \\\\<filestorage_ip_address>\share-<mountpoint_uuid>

   Specify:

   • <filestorage_ip_address> — file storage IP address. You can view it in the control panel: from the top menu, click Products → File Storage → storage page → Settings tab → IP field;
   • <mountpoint_uuid> — mount point ID. You can view it in the control panel: from the top menu, click Products → File Storage → storage page → Connection block → Windows tab.