Adding disk space to a VMware appliance

Increase disk space on the VMware appliance.

About this task

For multi-node deployment of the appliance, only one VM at a time should have its disk space augmented. The subsystem should be in good health before proceeding to the next node. Health of the subsystem can be checked with apicup subsys health-check <subsystem-name>.

Restriction:

The increased disk capacity of a VMware appliance won't be reflected in the storage size of the PVCs that are hosted on the appliance, as those PVCs are immutable. This restriction doesn't impact the Portal and Analytics subsystems, as the PVC storage size isn't used to enforce any disk usage limit, so the subsystems can use all of the additional disk space. However, for the Management subsystem the PVC storage size is used in the database storage utilization computation, and that might trigger disk usage warnings.

The most common reason for the Management subsystem database to run out of disk space, is due to Write Ahead Log (WAL) file accumulation in relation to an incorrectly configured backup, or an unavailable backup server. If this type of condition arises, adding disk space might help with the health of the appliance control plane, but it won't increase the disk space that's available to the database, so you must resolve the WAL file accumulation condition. If the disk space that's available to the Management database must be increased, you should carry out a disaster recovery operation of the Management subsystem, using a larger data disk size for the new installation, so that adding disk space after the install won't be needed.

Procedure

  1. Shutdown the virtual machine, either by issuing a shutdown command as root from the VM, or by using the VMware console or command line interface.

    For example, use the VMware console user interface and click the red rectangle.

  2. Use either the VMware console or command line interface to add a new device to the VM, of type Hard Disk and of the desired size to be added to the appliance.
    For example, on the VMware console:
    1. Click Edit settings.
    2. Click Add new device. From the drop-down menu, select Hard Disk.
    3. Enter size in GB and click OK.
  3. Use either the VMware console or the command line interface to power on the VM.
    As the VM starts it should detect the newly added disk and use it to augment the available capacity for the /data/secure mount point.
  4. Optionally you may verify that a new disk sdc was added (or sdd if you already added one disk, and so on). Log in to the server and observe the new disk. For example: 
    root@apimdev1139:~# lsblk
NAME               MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINT
sda                  8:0    0  100G  0 disk  
├─sda1               8:1    0 99.9G  0 part  /
├─sda14              8:14   0    4M  0 part  
└─sda15              8:15   0  106M  0 part  /boot/efi
sdb                  8:16   0  250G  0 disk  
└─apiconnect-data  252:0    0  260G  0 lvm   
  └─apicSecureDisk 252:1    0  260G  0 crypt /data/secure
sdc                  8:32   0   10G  0 disk  
└─apiconnect-data  252:0    0  260G  0 lvm   
  └─apicSecureDisk 252:1    0  260G  0 crypt /data/secure
sr0                 11:0    1   44K  0 rom