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Expand a volume

Non dynamically

When dynamic volume expansion is not activated, the command line will give an error like:

error: persistentvolumeclaims "postgresql" could not be patched: persistentvolumeclaims "postgresql" is forbidden: only dynamically provisioned pvc can be resized and the storageclass that provisions the pvc must support resize

Then a more artisanal procedure must be followed:

  • Create a new volume with the desired size

Create a new volume

  • Scale down the deployment that mounts the volume that is being resized.

Scale down

  • Mount the old and new volume in another Pod. The best option is to create a new deployment, create a file called two-volumes.yaml and replace the names of both volumes:
apiVersion: apps.openshift.io/v1
kind: DeploymentConfig
metadata:
  labels:
    app: two-volumes
  name: two-volumes
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    app: two-volumes
    deploymentconfig: two-volumes
  strategy:
    activeDeadlineSeconds: 21600
    type: Rolling
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: two-volumes
        deploymentconfig: two-volumes
    spec:
        containers:
        - image: lvarin/nginx-okd:plus
          imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
          name: two-volumes
          resources: {}
          terminationMessagePath: /dev/termination-log
          terminationMessagePolicy: File
          volumeMounts:
            - mountPath: /old
              name: old
            - mountPath: /new
              name: new
        dnsPolicy: ClusterFirst
        restartPolicy: Always
        schedulerName: default-scheduler
        securityContext: {}
        terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 30
        volumes:
          - name: old
            persistentVolumeClaim:
              claimName: <name of old volume>
          - name: new
            persistentVolumeClaim:
              claimName: <name of new volume>
  test: false
  triggers: {}
status: {}

oc create -f two-volumes.yaml
  • Sync the data
oc rsh dc/two-volumes rsync -vrlpD /old/ /new/
  • Delete that new Pod
oc delete dc/two-volumes
  • Exchange volumes in the deployment that was mounting the volume, it is at template > spec > volumes under claimName.
oc edit deploy/<name of deployment>
  • Finally scale up the deployment.

In order to check the procedure worked, you may enter in a Pod that is mounting the volume and check the new size.