storctl - AIStor Environment Manager

storctl is a command-line tool for managing demo and lab environments in cloud infrastructure or on the local host using virtual machines. The main focus of this tool is on MinIO AIStor testing, training, and demonstration.

Features

• Create and manage lab environments with multiple servers and volumes
• Manage DNS records with Cloudflare
• Use Lima virtual machines on macOS or Hetzner Cloud infrastructure (currently)
• Manage SSH keys to access cloud VMs
• Manage cloud resource lifecycle with TTL (Time To Live)
• Use YAML-based configuration and resource definitions similar to Kubernetes

Installation

Prerequisites

For both deployments

1. kubectl is installed. If it's not installed on your machine, follow these instructions

2. Krew is installed. If it's not installed, follow these instructions

3. DirectPV plugin is installed. If it's not installed, follow these instructions

4. Helm is installed. If it's not installed on your machine, follow these instructions. On a Mac, the easiest way is to use brew install helm.

For local deployment

Local AIStor installation uses Lima to manage virtual machines, QEMU as a virtualization engine, and socket_vmnet for the network. We have to use QEMU with socket_vmnet shared network to allow the VMs to talk to each other and being able to access the VMs from the host.

1. Install Lima.

   brew install lima

2. Install QEMU

   brew install qemu

3. Check if you have already installed Xcode command tools (which is very likely)

   xcode-select -p

   Expected output:

   /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools
   

   If it's not installed, run:

   xcode-select --install

4. Build and install the network driver for socket_vmnet. The full instructions and explanation is provided on the official Lima site. Here is a short version of it:

   # Install socket_vmnet as root from source to /opt/socket_vmnet
   # using instructions on https://github.com/lima-vm/socket_vmnet
   # This assumes that Xcode Command Line Tools are already installed
   git clone https://github.com/lima-vm/socket_vmnet
   cd socket_vmnet
   # Change "v1.2.1" to the actual latest release in https://github.com/lima-vm/socket_vmnet/releases
   git checkout v1.2.1
   make
   sudo make PREFIX=/opt/socket_vmnet install.bin
   
   # Set up the sudoers file for launching socket_vmnet from Lima
   limactl sudoers >etc_sudoers.d_lima
   less etc_sudoers.d_lima  # verify that the file looks correct
   sudo install -o root etc_sudoers.d_lima /etc/sudoers.d/lima
   rm etc_sudoers.d_lima

5. Note: Lima might give you an error message about the docker.sock file. In that case, just delete the file mentioned in the error message.

For cloud deployment

1. Get a Hetzner Cloud account and API token. Ask the Traning team for access to the MinIO shared project.

2. Get a Cloudflare account and API token (for DNS management) from the Training team. You don't need it if you prefer to use your own domain.

Using released binaries (recommended)

Download binaries for your OS/arch from the Releases page.

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/pavelanni/storctl
cd storctl
go build -o storctl .
# Move the resulting binary to your PATH
mv storctl $HOME/.local/bin # or any other directory in your PATH

Configuration

1. Initialize the configuration:

storctl init

This creates a default configuration directory at ~/.storctl with the following structure:

• config.yaml -- Main configuration file
• templates/ -- Lab environment templates
• keys/ -- SSH key storage
• ansible/ -- for Ansible playbooks and inventory files
• lima/ -- for Lima configs

1. Edit the configuration file at ~/.storctl/config.yaml:

providers:
  - name: "hetzner"
    token: "your-hetzner-token" # add your Hetzner Cloud token if you are going to use cloud installation
    location: "nbg1" # EU locations: nbd1, fsn1, hel1; US locations: ash, hil; APAC locations: sin
  - name: "lima"

dns: # this section is not used by local installation
  provider: "cloudflare"
  token: "your-cloudflare-token" # add your Cloudflare token if you're going to use cloud installation
  zone_id: "your-zone-id" # add your Cloudflare Zone ID if you're going to use cloud installation
  domain: "aistorlabs.com" # feel free to use your own domain

# this section is not used by local installation
email: "[email protected]"
organization: "your-organization"
owner: "your-name"

Usage

Basic Commands

# View current configuration
storctl config view

# Create a new lab environment
storctl create lab mylab --template lab.yaml

# List all labs
storctl get lab

# Get details about a specific lab
storctl get lab mylab

# Delete a lab
storctl delete lab mylab

# Create a new SSH key (you need it only for cloud installation)
storctl create key mykey

# Create a new server (usually servers are created automatically)
storctl create server myserver

# Create a new volume (usually volumes are created automatically)
storctl create volume myvolume

Using resource YAML files

You can also create resources using YAML definition files. Those files use a format used by Kubernetes manifests.

storctl create -f lab.yaml
storctl create -f server.yaml
storctl create -f volume.yaml

Resource templates

Example lab template:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Lab
metadata:
  name: aistor-lab
  labels:
    project: aistor
spec:
  ttl: 24h
  provider: hetzner
  location: nbg1
  servers:
  - name: cp
    serverType: cx22
    image: ubuntu-24.04
  - name: node-01
    serverType: cx22
    image: ubuntu-24.04
volumes:
  - name: volume-01
    server: node-01
    size: 100
    automount: false
    format: xfs

After AIStor installation

1. At the end of the Ansible playbook output find the location of the Kubernetes config file. It should include the phrase "You can use it by running: export KUBECONFIG=". Copy the file path and run the command mentioned above:

   export KUBECONFIG=$HOME/.storctl/kubeconfigs/mylab-kubeconfig

2. Check if you can see the cluster nodes:

   kubectl get nodes

   Expected output:

   NAME            STATUS   ROLES                  AGE     VERSION
   mylab-cp        Ready    control-plane,master   6m55s   v1.31.5+k3s1
   mylab-node-01   Ready    <none>                 6m48s   v1.31.5+k3s1
   

3. Check if the AIStor pod is running:

   kubectl get pod -n aistor

   Expected output:

   NAME       READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
   aistor-0   1/1     Running   0          20s
   

4. Check if the AIStor service has been created:

   kubectl get svc -n aistor

   Expected output:

   NAME        TYPE        CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)             AGE
   aistor      ClusterIP   10.43.182.85   <none>        8444/TCP,7899/TCP   70s
   aistor-hl   ClusterIP   None           <none>        8444/TCP,7899/TCP   70s
   

5. Run the port-forward command to be able to access the cluster from the browser:

   kubectl port-forward -n aistor svc/aistor 8444:8444

   Expected output:

   Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:8444 -> 8444
   Forwarding from [::1]:8444 -> 8444
   

   Don't close this terminal session and keep it running while configuring AIStor.

6. Open the URL: http://localhost:8444 in the browser. You should see the first AIStor page where you should enter the license.

7. Enter the license key. If you don't have it, obtain it from your MinIO representative.

8. Create the first user that will the the cluster admin.

   

9. Create your first object store. Answer "No" to both questions (about drive manager and encryption).

   

   1. Configure the object store according to the cluster configuration you created. For example, if you have one worker node and four drives (the default lab.yaml), enter those parameters in the fields. Set the total storage to 100 GiB.

      

10. Add a user to the Object Store you just created. Click Access in the menu:

    

    And create the admin user. Assign the consoleAdmin policy to that user.

    

11. Add an an Inbound traffic configuration to access the cluster via NodePort. Click Inbound Traffic in the menu:

    

    Enable Direct Access. Set the port for Object API to 30001 and for Console UI to 31001.

    

12. In another terminal session (not the one running the kubectl port-forward command) create a new alias for the first Object Store. Use the credentials you give the first user. In the example below the user is admin and the password is learn-by-doing.

    export MC_INSECURE=true
    mc alias set aistor-first https://localhost:30001 admin learn-by-doing

13. Open this URL in your browser: https://localhost:31001

14. Enter your admin user credentials in the login form. These is the user you created in the first Object Store, NOT the first user you created after installing AIStor.

    

15. Use the Object Store console the usual way.

Resource management

All resources support:

• Labels for organization and filtering
• TTL (Time To Live) for automatic cleanup
• Provider-specific configurations
• YAML/JSON manifest files

Known issues

1. In multi-node configurations (with more than one worker node in the cluster) sometimes DirectPV doesn't discover drives on all nodes properly. Before starting using AIStor after installation, check DirectPV status with this command:

   kubectl directpv info

   If in the output you don't see all your nodes and drives, re-run the discovery and initialization commands:

   kubectl directpv discover
   kubectl directpv init drives.yaml --dangerous

   And check the status again with the kubectl directpv info command.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.