Manage Partitions and Persistent Data on an eLogin Node

Provides high-level description of how to change the storage layout on a booted eLogin node.

Storage profiles define the disk layout and partition information for internal disks on eLogin nodes. The profiles are defined in the cray_storage service in the CLE config set that is assigned to each eLogin node. Storage profile changes are applied when the node is PXE booted or rebooted using enode reboot --staged. When necessary, storage profiles can be changed and applied on a running system. The following two procedures describe how to make and apply changes in the CLE config set. If it is necessary to change the configuration of virtual disk sda or sdb, see Configure the eLogin RAID Virtual Disks.

  • Nonpersistent Disks
    For nonpersistent disks (devices with persist_on_boot: false), ALL of the partitions are removed and re-created at boot time. The following changes are supported:
    • Add or remove partitions
    • Change partition size
    • Change partition file system type
    • Change partition ordering
  • Persistent Disks
    For persistent disks (devices with persist_on_boot: true), no partitions are removed and re-created at boot time. Only the following change is supported:
    • Add partitions (only if the disk contains adequate space for the new partitions)
    Partition size, partition file system type, and partition ordering cannot be changed as long as the persist_on_boot field remains set to true. Removal of partitions is also not supported on persistent disks.

To reprovision a nonpersistent disk, simply make the changes to the storage profile in the CLE config set assigned to that eLogin node and either PXE boot the node or reboot it with the --staged option.

To reprovision a persistent disk, it is necessary to first set it to nonpersistent, make any other storage profile changes, reboot the node with the new storage layout, then reset the disk to persistent. Note that ALL DATA WILL BE LOST in the process.
Warning: To avoid loss of data when reprovisioning a persistent disk, move data to a safe location before rebooting the eLogin node.