Chapter 5. Erasure code pools overview Ceph storage strategies involve defining data durability requirements. Data durability means the ability to sustain the loss of one or more OSDs without losing data. Ceph stores data in pools and there are two types of the pools: replicated erasure-coded Ceph uses the replicated pools by default, meaning the Ceph copies every object from a primary OSD node to one or more secondary OSDs. The erasure-coded pools reduce the amount of disk space required to ensure data durability but it is computationally a bit more expensive than replication. Erasure coding is a method of storing an object in the Ceph storage cluster durably where the erasure code algorithm breaks the object into data chunks ( k ) and coding chunks ( m ), and stores those chunks in different OSDs. In the event of the failure of an OSD, Ceph retrieves the remaining data ( k ) and coding ( m ) chunks from the other OSDs and the erasure code algorithm restores the object from those chunks. Note Red Hat recommends min_size for erasure-coded pools to be K+1 or more to prevent loss of writes and data. Erasure coding uses storage capacity more efficiently than replication. The n-replication approach maintains n copies of an object (3x by default in Ceph), whereas erasure coding maintains only k + m chunks. For example, 3 data and 2 coding chunks use 1.5x the storage space of the original object. While erasure coding uses less storage overhead than replication, the erasure code algorithm uses more RAM and CPU than replication when it accesses or recovers objects. Erasure coding is advantageous when data storage must be durable and fault tolerant, but do not require fast read performance (for example, cold storage, historical records, and so on). For the mathematical and detailed explanation on how erasure code works in Ceph, see the Ceph Erasure Coding section in the Architecture Guide for Red Hat Ceph Storage 6. Ceph creates a default erasure code profile when initializing a cluster with k=2 and m=2 , This mean that Ceph will spread the object data over four OSDs ( k+m == 4 ) and Ceph can lose one of those OSDs without losing data. To know more about erasure code profiling see the Erasure Code Profiles section. Important Configure only the .rgw.buckets pool as erasure-coded and all other Ceph Object Gateway pools as replicated, otherwise an attempt to create a new bucket fails with the following error: The reason for this is that erasure-coded pools do not support the omap operations and certain Ceph Object Gateway metadata pools require the omap support. 5.1. Creating a sample erasure-coded pool The ceph osd pool create command creates an erasure-coded pool with the default profile, unless another profile is specified. Profiles define the redundancy of data by setting two parameters, k , and m . These parameters define the number of chunks a piece of data is split and the number of coding chunks are created. The simplest erasure coded pool is equivalent to RAID5 and requires at least three hosts: Example Note The 32 in pool create stands for the number of placement groups. 5.2. Erasure code profiles Ceph defines an erasure-coded pool with a profile . Ceph uses a profile when creating an erasure-coded pool and the associated CRUSH rule. Ceph creates a default erasure code profile when initializing a cluster and it provides the same level of redundancy as two copies in a replicated pool. However, it uses 25% less storage capacity. The default profiles define k=2 and m=2 , meaning Ceph will spread the object data over four OSDs ( k+m=4 ) and Ceph can lose one of those OSDs without losing data. The default erasure code profile can sustain the loss of a single OSD. It is equivalent to a replicated pool with a size two, but requires 1.5 TB instead of 2 TB to store 1 TB of data. To display the default profile use the following command: You can create a new profile to improve redundancy without increasing raw storage requirements. For instance, a profile with k=8 and m=4 can sustain the loss of four ( m=4 ) OSDs by distributing an object on 12 ( k+m=12 ) OSDs. Ceph divides the object into 8 chunks and computes 4 coding chunks for recovery. For example, if the object size is 8 MB, each data chunk is 1 MB and each coding chunk has the same size as the data chunk, that is also 1 MB. The object will not be lost even if four OSDs fail simultaneously. The most important parameters of the profile are k , m and crush-failure-domain , because they define the storage overhead and the data durability. Important Choosing the correct profile is important because you cannot change the profile after you create the pool. To modify a profile, you must create a new pool with a different profile and migrate the objects from the old pool to the new pool. For instance, if the desired architecture must sustain the loss of two racks with a storage overhead of 40% overhead, the following profile can be defined: The primary OSD will divide the NYAN object into four ( k=4 ) data chunks and create two additional chunks ( m=2 ). The value of m defines how many OSDs can be lost simultaneously without losing any data. The crush-failure-domain=rack will create a CRUSH rule that ensures no two chunks are stored in the same rack. Important Red Hat supports the following jerasure coding values for k , and m : k=8 m=3 k=8 m=4 k=4 m=2 Important If the number of OSDs lost equals the number of coding chunks ( m ), some placement groups in the erasure coding pool will go into incomplete state. If the number of OSDs lost is less than m , no placement groups will go into incomplete state. In either situation, no data loss will occur. If placement groups are in incomplete state, temporarily reducing min_size of an erasure coded pool will allow recovery. 5.2.1. Setting OSD erasure-code-profile To create a new erasure code profile: Syntax Where: directory Description Set the directory name from which the erasure code plug-in is loaded. Type String Required No. Default /usr/lib/ceph/erasure-code plugin Description Use the erasure code plug-in to compute coding chunks and recover missing chunks. See the Erasure Code Plug-ins section for details. Type String Required No. Default jerasure stripe_unit Description The amount of data in a data chunk, per stripe. For example, a profile with 2 data chunks and stripe_unit=4K would put the range 0-4K in chunk 0, 4K-8K in chunk 1, then 8K-12K in chunk 0 again. This should be a multiple of 4K for best performance. The default value is taken from the monitor config option osd_pool_erasure_code_stripe_unit when a pool is created. The stripe_width of a pool using this profile will be the number of data chunks multiplied by this stripe_unit . Type String Required No. Default 4K crush-device-class Description The device class, such as hdd or ssd . Type String Required No Default none , meaning CRUSH uses all devices regardless of class. crush-failure-domain Description The failure domain, such as host or rack . Type String Required No Default host key Description The semantic of the remaining key-value pairs is defined by the erasure code plug-in. Type String Required No. --force Description Override an existing profile by the same name. Type String Required No. 5.2.2. Removing OSD erasure-code-profile To remove an erasure code profile: Syntax If the profile is referenced by a pool, the deletion fails. Warning Removing an erasure code profile using osd erasure-code-profile rm command does not automatically delete the associated CRUSH rule associated with the erasure code profile. Red Hat recommends to manually remove the associated CRUSH rule using ceph osd crush rule remove RULE_NAME command to avoid unexpected behavior. 5.2.3. Getting OSD erasure-code-profile To display an erasure code profile: Syntax 5.2.4. Listing OSD erasure-code-profile To list the names of all erasure code profiles: Syntax 5.3. Erasure Coding with Overwrites By default, erasure coded pools only work with the Ceph Object Gateway, which performs full object writes and appends. Using erasure coded pools with overwrites allows Ceph Block Devices and CephFS store their data in an erasure coded pool: Syntax Example Enabling erasure coded pools with overwrites can only reside in a pool using BlueStore OSDs. Since BlueStore's checksumming is used to detect bit rot or other corruption during deep scrubs. Erasure coded pools do not support omap. To use erasure coded pools with Ceph Block Devices and CephFS, store the data in an erasure coded pool, and the metadata in a replicated pool. For Ceph Block Devices, use the --data-pool option during image creation: Syntax Example If using erasure coded pools for CephFS, then setting the overwrites must be done in a file layout. 5.4. Erasure Code Plugins Ceph supports erasure coding with a plug-in architecture, which means you can create erasure coded pools using different types of algorithms. Ceph supports Jerasure. 5.4.1. Creating a new erasure code profile using jerasure erasure code plugin The jerasure plug-in is the most generic and flexible plug-in. It is also the default for Ceph erasure coded pools. The jerasure plug-in encapsulates the JerasureH library. For detailed information about the parameters, see the jerasure documentation. To create a new erasure code profile using the jerasure plug-in, run the following command: Syntax Where: k Description Each object is split in data-chunks parts, each stored on a different OSD. Type Integer Required Yes. Example 4 m Description Compute coding chunks for each object and store them on different OSDs. The number of coding chunks is also the number of OSDs that can be down without losing data. Type Integer Required Yes. Example 2 technique Description The more flexible technique is reed_sol_van ; it is enough to set k and m . The cauchy_good technique can be faster but you need to choose the packetsize carefully. All of reed_sol_r6_op , liberation , blaum_roth , liber8tion are RAID6 equivalents in the sense that they can only be configured with m=2 . Type String Required No. Valid Settings reed_sol_van reed_sol_r6_op cauchy_orig cauchy_good liberation blaum_roth liber8tion Default reed_sol_van packetsize Description The encoding will be done on packets of bytes size at a time. Choosing the correct packet size is difficult. The jerasure documentation contains extensive information on this topic. Type Integer Required No. Default 2048 crush-root Description The name of the CRUSH bucket used for the first step of the rule. For instance step take default . Type String Required No. Default default crush-failure-domain Description Ensure that no two chunks are in a bucket with the same failure domain. For instance, if the failure domain is host no two chunks will be stored on the same host. It is used to create a rule step such as step chooseleaf host . Type String Required No. Default host directory Description Set the directory name from which the erasure code plug-in is loaded. Type String Required No. Default /usr/lib/ceph/erasure-code --force Description Override an existing profile by the same name. Type String Required No. 5.4.2. Controlling CRUSH Placement The default CRUSH rule provides OSDs that are on different hosts. For instance: needs exactly 8 OSDs, one for each chunk. If the hosts are in two adjacent racks, the first four chunks can be placed in the first rack and the last four in the second rack. Recovering from the loss of a single OSD does not require using bandwidth between the two racks. For instance: creates a rule that selects two crush buckets of type rack and for each of them choose four OSDs, each of them located in a different bucket of type host . The rule can also be created manually for finer control.

Commands:
set_req_state_err err_no=95 resorting to 500
ceph osd pool create ecpool 32 32 erasure pool 'ecpool' created echo ABCDEFGHI | rados --pool ecpool put NYAN - rados --pool ecpool get NYAN - ABCDEFGHI
ceph osd erasure-code-profile get default k=2 m=2 plugin=jerasure technique=reed_sol_van
ceph osd erasure-code-profile set myprofile k=4 m=2 crush-failure-domain=rack ceph osd pool create ecpool 12 12 erasure *myprofile* echo ABCDEFGHIJKL | rados --pool ecpool put NYAN - rados --pool ecpool get NYAN - ABCDEFGHIJKL
ceph osd erasure-code-profile set NAME [<directory= DIRECTORY >] [<plugin= PLUGIN >] [<stripe_unit= STRIPE_UNIT >] [<_CRUSH_DEVICE_CLASS_>] [<_CRUSH_FAILURE_DOMAIN_>] [<key=value> ...] [--force]
ceph osd erasure-code-profile rm NAME
ceph osd erasure-code-profile get NAME
ceph osd erasure-code-profile ls
ceph osd pool set ERASURE_CODED_POOL_NAME allow_ec_overwrites true
ceph osd pool set ec_pool allow_ec_overwrites true
rbd create --size IMAGE_SIZE_M|G|T --data-pool _ERASURE_CODED_POOL_NAME REPLICATED_POOL_NAME / IMAGE_NAME
rbd create --size 1G --data-pool ec_pool rep_pool/image01
ceph osd erasure-code-profile set NAME plugin=jerasure k= DATA_CHUNKS m= DATA_CHUNKS technique= TECHNIQUE [crush-root= ROOT ] [crush-failure-domain= BUCKET_TYPE ] [directory= DIRECTORY ] [--force]
chunk nr 01234567 step 1 _cDD_cDD step 2 cDDD____ step 3 ____cDDD
crush-steps='[ [ "choose", "rack", 2 ], [ "chooseleaf", "host", 4 ] ]'