Metadata Server ranks

Ranks define how the metadata workload is shared between multiple Metadata Server (MDS) daemons. The number of ranks is the maximum number of MDS daemons that can be active at one time. Each MDS daemon handles a subset of the CephFS metadata that is assigned to that rank.

Each Ceph File System (CephFS) has a number of ranks, one by default, which starts at zero.

Each MDS daemon initially starts without a rank. The Ceph Monitor assigns a rank to the daemon. The MDS daemon can only hold one rank at a time. Daemons only lose ranks when they are stopped.

The max_mds setting controls how many ranks will be created.

The actual number of ranks in the CephFS is only increased if a spare daemon is available to accept the new rank.