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Create and Manage Drives

Latest Frontend Version: 2.17.3

Create a New Drive​

Method one:​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Drives section on the top left panel.
  3. Click the Create new drive in the top right corner.
  4. In the prompt, enter the drive name and capacity in GB or TB.
  5. Select the drive format from:
    EXT4 (Linux)
    BTRFS (Linux)
    XFS (Linux)
    ZFS (Linux)
    NTFS (Windows).
  6. Add an optional owner, team, optional project, and realm.
  7. Click Create.

Method two:​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Virtual Machines section on the top left panel.
  3. In the left panel, select the virtual machine to create a new drive in.
  4. Click the VM Settings and Details option in the bottom center.
  5. In the new window, select the Drives section in the left panel.
  6. Click Attach drive(s) icon in the top panel.
  7. In the prompt, select Create a new drive.
  8. In the prompt, enter the drive name and capacity in GB or TB.
  9. Select the drive format from:
    EXT4 (Linux)
    BTRFS (Linux)
    XFS (Linux)
    ZFS (Linux)
    NTFS (Windows).
  10. Add an optional owner, team, optional project, and realm.
  11. Click Create.
note
  • Your drive capacity depends on your allocated team resources.
  • Your drive format determines what kind of VM the drive can be attached to.
  • Click the Advanced options button to set the permission management status and the Cache & IO strategy for the drive.
Confirmations, Errors & Solutions
Created Drive Successfully

Created drive drive-name.

Selected NTFS (Windows) Drive Format

NTFS drive names cannot be changed after creation due to Windows BitLocker restrictions. The encryption is tied to the device and its name. Please be cautious and choose drive names carefully during the creation process.

Did Not Select Optional Drive Owner

Leaving this blank means you will be the owner.

Enabled No Permission Management

In Create new drive prompt, under Advanced Options you selected Enable option.


If you select this option, tiCrypt will not manage permissions for this drive. No access directories can be created on the drive and the data is not available to regular users. This option is useful if you want applications such as databases to store their data on this drive.

Did Not Enter Drive Name

You must enter a name for the drive.

Enter Drive Name

In the Create new drive prompt, enter the drive name in the Name field.

Did Not Enter Drive Capacity

You must enter a capacity for the drive.

Enter Drive Capacity

In the Create new drive prompt, enter the drive capacity in the Capacity field.

Did Not Select Drive Team

You must select a team from the autocomplete.

Select Drive Team

In the Create new drive prompt, under Relation section, enter the drive team in the Team field.

Unable to Select Backup Settings

Your back-up settings are inactive upon drive creation.

Select Libvirt Realm

In the Create new drive prompt, under the Realm section, select Libvirt as the realm.

Unable to Create Drives

Drive creation failed: Unable to perform action, missing permissions.

Create Drive Button Inactive

Create button is inactive in Drive Creation prompt.

Ask Admin for Drive Creation Permissions

Ask your admin to allow you to create drives.



To Admin

To allow a user to create drives:



  1. In the Management section, click the Users section in the left panel.
  2. Select the appropriate user to update permissions.
  3. Click the Open Overlay button in the top right.
  4. In the new window, go to the Manual permission management section.
  5. Under Basic VM Interaction section, tick the Create drives permission.
  6. Once done, click Save in the top center.

Attach an Existing Drive to an Existing VM​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Virtual Machines section on the top left panel.
  3. In the left panel, select the virtual machine to attach the drives to.
  4. Click the VM Settings and Details option in the bottom center.
  5. In the new window, select the Drives section in the left panel.
  6. Click Attach drive(s) icon in the top panel.
  7. In the prompt, select Add a new drive.
  8. Next, select the drive and the drive type.
  9. Optionally, tick the box Add drive(s) to the VM configuration and share drive(s) with co-owners.
  10. Click Attach and mount.
info
  • A read-write drive can only be attached to a single VM. A read-only drive can be attached to multiple VMs.
  • To automatically share the newly created or attached drive with the VM co-owners, tick Add drive(s) to the VM configuration and share drive(s) with co-owners box.
Confirmations, Errors & Solutions
Attached Drive Successfully

Attach/mount drive-name to vm-name(total-attaching-time).

Unable to Attach Drive

Failed at attaching-time: cannot format/encrypt read-only drive: drive-name.

If the drive is re-attached read-only or read-write, the following error appears in the prompt.

Timeout Failure to Attach Drive

Failed at attaching-time: Timeout waiting for item drive-string-id to satisfy predicate.

Ask Drive Owner to Change Drive Team

You must ask the drive owner to change the drive team or increase the team quota for the drive-associated team.



To Drive Owner

To change drive team:  
  1. In the Drives section, select the drive where you want to change the drive team.
  2. Click the Edit drive button in the top panel list.
  3. In the new window, under Relation section, select a new team.
  4. Click Update.
To increase drive team quota follow the steps in  

Edit Teams' Quotas.


Missing Permissions To Attaach/Mount Drive

First attempt to attach/mount home drive failed (will retry once): Unable to perform this action, missing permissions.

Ask Admin to Allow You to Attach/Mount Drives

Ask your admin to update your permissions for attaching and mounting drives.



To Admin

To update drive attach/mount permission for a user:  

  1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Navigate to the Users section.
  3. Click the Users in the top left panel.
  4. Select the user whose permissions you want to update.
  5. Click the Open Full Menu button in the top right panel.
  6. Select Open Overlay.
  7. In the new window, navigate to Miscellaneous.
  8. Click Manual permission management in the left panel.

  9. Under Basic VM Interaction, tick the following permissions.
      10. View drives (inconsistent, see notes)
      View drive keys (necessary to share/attach)
      Attach drives to VMs
      Detach drives from VMs
  10. Once done, click the Save button above.

Remount an Existing Drive in an Existing VM​

bulk-action

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Virtual Machines section on the top left panel.
  3. In the left panel, select the virtual machine to remount the drive into.
  4. Click the VM Settings and Details option in the bottom center.
  5. In the new window, select the Drives section in the left panel.
  6. Select the drive(s) to remount.
  7. Click the Remount drive(s) icon in the top panel.

Mount All Existing Drives in an Existing VM​

bulk-action

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Virtual Machines section on the top left panel.
  3. In the left panel, select the virtual machine to mount all drives into.
  4. Click the VM Settings and Details option in the bottom center.
  5. In the new window, select the Drives section in the left panel.
  6. Click Mount all Drives icon in the top panel.
Confirmations, Errors & Solutions
Mounted All Drives Successfully

Mount all drives on vm-name (total-mounting-time).

Timeout Failure to Mount All Drives

Failed at mount-all-attaching-time: Timeout waiting for item drive-string-id to satisfy predicate.

Ask Drive Owner(s) to Change All Drive Types To Ready

You must ask the drive owner(s) to change all drives in the VM to a ready state.



To Drive Owner
You cannot change states of ReadOnly or ReadWrite drives. If your drives failed to mount in VM, you must create a new drive from scratch. Additionally, you might want to migrate the unused drive(s) to a different storage pool for data management.

To create a new drive follow the steps in  

Create a New Drive.



To migrate an existing drive to a different storage pool follow the steps in  

Migrate a Drive to a Different Storage Pool.

Detach a Drive from an Existing VM​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Virtual Machines section on the top left panel.
  3. In the left panel, select the virtual machine to detach the drive from.
  4. Click the VM Settings and Details option in the bottom center.
  5. In the new window, select the Drives section in the left panel.
  6. From the list, select the drive you want to detach.
  7. Click the Open Full Menu button by the selected drive in the left panel list.
  8. Select Detach drive(s).
  9. In the prompt, click Yes to proceed.
warning

Detaching a drive revokes user access and stops applications running from the drive.