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AppLogic Volume Manager

Some of the standard appliances delivered with AppLogic include read-only placeholder volumes for things like web data, configuration files and other critical content. These appliances include insslr. In almost all cases, these read only volumes require you to put content on them for them to be effective.

Users may be confused by this because once you configure a volume, and apply it to the appliance, it is no longer writable. How do you get the content there?

The way around this is to use the "volume manage" command available through both the 3t CLI and through the grid shell.

What the vol manage command does is to provide access to a volume before it is placed in use and to allow you to run commands to create and introduce files into the volume before you attach it to the appliance and make it read-only. It can be used on any application user volume, not just those destined to become read only. Note that the volume cannot be in use if you want to manage it.

Procedure

First thing, create a volume for an application with the Volume Manager.

Once you have the volume created, you can "manage" it through the grid shell. Press the icon in the editor to open the grid shell. In this enter vol manage <volume>.

In this case, the volume is called "content." Once run this command will open the volume as /mnt/vol in a instance of the filer and log you in.

Once in, you can run commands and edit files to create the necessary content required for the volume to function properly with the appliance after you mount it. But suppose you want to bring content in from outside? You can simply feed volume manage external network information to create a connection to the outside network.

This instance includes a connection to the outside network assigned to /eth0

With the proper ssh key configuration, you can rsync or sftp files into the volume, then apply it to your appliance, thereby circumventing the restrictions applied by the appliance.
Some things to remember:

• Remove unwanted artifacts from the volume itself (/mnt/vol). Make sure, except for the content you add, that nothing spurious remains in the volume.
• All the constructs beyond the volume are virtual. After you exit the volume manage command, the contents of the volume itself (the things under /mnt/vol) are all that remains. Anything else you place in the instance will disappear with the instance.

Once the command completes, you can mount the volume to the appliance and use your content. Note that you can manage the volume even after it's mounted.

Other Options

The WebUI's Volume Manager has a graphic version of this function. Simply highlight a volume in Volume Manager.

• Choose the "Manage" button to call the java-based volume manager.
• Finally, the volume manager presents the contents of the volume in an explorer type interface.
• From here, you can traverse the filesystem, edit and rename the files you find. Right-click on a file to call the context menu of options.
• Or use the toolbar above the list of files in the directory.

References

Further information on the "volume manager" can be found in your AppLogic documentation in the Command Line Shell Reference Guide here.

A training video on using the INSSLR appliance which makes use of the vol manage command can be found here.

More information about the Volume Browser, including the function of the toobar items, can be found here.