Multi-node deployment

  • Uses MicroCeph
  • Minimum 4-nodes, full-HA Ceph cluster
  • Suitable for small-scale production environments

These installation instructions use MicroCeph – Ceph in a snap. MicroCeph is a pure upstream Ceph distribution designed for small scale and edge deployments, which can be installed and maintained with minimal knowledge and effort.

You will need 4 physical machines with multi-core processors and at least 8GiB of memory and 100GB of disk space. MicroCeph has been tested on x86-based physical machines running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

  1. To get started, install the MicroCeph snap with the following command on each node to be used in the cluster: 

    sudo snap install microceph

  2. Then bootstrap the cluster from the first node:

    sudo microceph cluster bootstrap

  3. On the first node, add other nodes to the cluster:

    sudo microceph cluster add node[x]

  4. Copy the resulting output to be used on node[x]:

    sudo microceph cluster join pasted-output-from-node1

    Repeat these steps for each additional node you would like to add to the cluster.

  5. Check the cluster status with the following command:

    sudo microceph.ceph status

    Here you should see that all the nodes you added have joined the cluster, in the familiar ceph status output.

  6. Next, add some disks to each node that will be used as OSDs:

    sudo microceph disk add /dev/sd[x] --wipe

    Repeat for each disk you would like to use as an OSD on that node, and additionally on the other nodes in the cluster. Cluster status can be verified using: 

    sudo microceph.ceph status
    sudo microceph.ceph osd status