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tiCrypt 2.18.1

Drive Details and Configuration

Drive details are the read-only view of a drive's specification: its size and format, the users and virtual machines it is shared with, its identifier, and its cache and IO strategy. This page is for inspecting that record rather than changing it. Sub-admins and Admins can also export it from Management > Virtual Machines > Drives.

Why you would need a drive's details​

The drive ID is how drives are referenced outside the interface. Support requests, audit queries, and API calls identify a drive by its ID rather than its name, because names are not unique and, for NTFS drives, cannot be changed after creation.

The shared-users list is the authoritative answer to "who can read this". Because access to a drive is a key grant rather than a server-enforced permission, this list is the record of who holds a key. Review it before adding data to a drive that already exists, not after.

Cache and IO strategy affect throughput, not safety. These settings change how the host buffers reads and writes for the drive. They are a performance decision; the encryption is unaffected either way.

Before you begin​

  • You have the View their drives permission.
  • To see the list of users a drive is shared with, you own the drive or are a Sub-admin or Admin.

Access Drive Details​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Drives section on the top left panel.
  3. Select the drive to view its details.
  4. In the right panel, view the drive name and format at the top, followed by its team and project tag.
Result:

The header reads Drive, or Attached Drive when the drive is attached to a VM, followed by the drive name and its format, for example Linux (EXT4) or Windows (NTFS). A deleted drive's name is followed by (deleted).

View Drive Specifications​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Drives section on the top left panel.
  3. Select the drive to view its specifications.
  4. In the right panel, under Specification, view the drive format, mounting options, capacity, and attachment.

The following table describes the lines of the Specification card.

LineDescription
FormatThe drive format.
TypeThe disk image type, qcow2 or raw.
Mounting optionsThe options the drive is mounted with, for example the BTRFS compression algorithm and level.
CapacityThe size of the drive.
Used spaceThe space the drive takes on disk, when known.
Allowed attachmentRead-write and read-only, or Read-only for a drive that cannot be attached read-write.
PoolThe storage pool the drive is in, or Not set.
SnapshotYes if the drive has a snapshot, otherwise None.
Snapshot poolThe pool of the snapshot, when there is one.
Permission managementManaged by tiCrypt, or Not managed by tiCrypt for a drive created with No permission management enabled.
info

The drive format may be any of ext4, ntfs, btrfs, xfs, or zfs.

View Drive Basic Information​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Drives section on the top left panel.
  3. Select the drive to view its basic information.
  4. In the right panel, scroll down to the Basic info section.
  5. View the drive owner, backup, creation date & time, and ID for debugging purposes.

The Basic info card shows the Owner, the State (Not set when the drive has none), the Realm, the Backup setting (Will never be backed up or Can be backed up, shown when drive backup tracking is enabled), the Cache strategy and IO strategy (only when they are set on the drive rather than taken from the realm), Created on, Last changed, Last attached, and ID.

View Drive Shared Users and VMs​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Drives section on the top left panel.
  3. Select the drive to view its shared users and VMs.
  4. In the right panel, scroll down to the Shared with number-of-users users section.
  5. View all users the drive is shared with, with Read-write or Readonly under each name.
  6. Under the next section (Attached read-write to 1 VM or Attached read-only to number-of-VMs VMs), view all VMs the drive is attached to.
note

Only the drive owner, or a Sub-admin or Admin, can load the list of users a drive is shared with. Anyone else sees "The users this drive is shared with could not be loaded." If the number of keys is known, the card title still shows how many users the drive is shared with.

Copy Drive ID​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Drives section on the top left panel.
  3. Select the drive to view its ID.
  4. In the right panel, scroll down to the Basic info section.
  5. Click the copy button next to ID.
  6. Paste the drive ID where necessary.
info

The drive ID is a string of numbers and letters such as 590c350a-7c5e-478e-88cf-6f35fd3b56bc.

Confirmations, Errors & Solutions
Copied Drive ID Successfully

Drive ID copied to clipboard.

View Drives Data for JSON Export​

bulk-action

note

Drive data export is available only in the Management tab, which requires a Sub-admin or Admin role.

  1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Under Virtual Machines in the left panel, click Drives.
  3. Select the drive(s) to view for JSON export.
  4. Click the Export JSON button in the bottom toolbar.
  5. Select View selected items.
  6. In the new prompt, click the Expand all fields button in the top left panel.
  7. View the JSON data of each selected drive, including its ID, name, owner ID, owner, state, project, team ID, team, capacity, format, backup, and type.
  8. Once done, click Close.

Download or Copy Drives Data in JSON​

bulk-action

  1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Under Virtual Machines in the left panel, click Drives.
  3. Select the drive(s) to view for JSON export.
  4. Click the Export JSON button in the bottom toolbar.
  5. Select View selected items.
  6. In the new prompt, click the Expand all fields button in the top left panel.
  7. View the JSON data of each selected drive, including its ID, name, owner ID, owner, state, project, team ID, team, capacity, format, backup, and type.
  8. Click Copy to copy drive data to the clipboard or click Download to download drive data locally.
  9. Once done, click Close.

Export Drive Data in JSON Format​

bulk-action

  1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Under Virtual Machines in the left panel, click Drives.
  3. Select the drive(s) to export in JSON format.
  4. Click the Export JSON button in the bottom toolbar.
  5. Select Export selected items.
  6. In the new prompt, choose the local export destination.
  7. Click Save.

Export Drive Data in CSV Format​

bulk-action

  1. Go to the Management icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Under Virtual Machines in the left panel, click Drives.
  3. Select the drive(s) to export in CSV format.
  4. Click the Export CSV button in the bottom toolbar.
  5. Select Selected items.
  6. In the new prompt, choose the local export destination.
  7. Click Save.

Prepare the Drive to Store Applications and Databases​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Drives section on the top left panel.
  3. Select the drive to store applications and databases.
  4. Click the Edit drive button in the top panel list.
  5. In the prompt, click the Advanced Options button.
  6. Under No permission management, change the setting from Disable to Enable.
  7. Click Update drive-name.
caution

Enabling this option disables tiCrypt's permission management for this drive; the application using it becomes responsible for permissions instead. No access directories can be created, and the data will not be available to regular users. This is useful for applications such as databases that store large amounts of data.

Change the Cache Strategy of a Drive​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Drives section on the top left panel.
  3. Select the drive for which you want to change the cache strategy.
  4. Click the Edit drive button in the top panel list.
  5. In the prompt, click the Advanced Options button.
  6. Change Cache Strategy from Use value from realm configuration (default) to default, none, writethrough, writeback, or directsync.
  7. Click Update drive-name.

Change the IO Strategy of a Drive​

  1. Go to the Virtual Machines icon in the top left taskbar.
  2. Click the Drives section on the top left panel.
  3. Select the drive for which you want to change the IO strategy.
  4. Click the Edit drive button in the top panel list.
  5. In the prompt, click the Advanced Options button.
  6. Change IO Strategy from Use value from realm configuration (default) to threads or native.
  7. Click Update drive-name.
tip

Use dedicated threads when handling many concurrent IO operations. Use native for high-performance databases or large-scale storage systems.

Change Drive Capacity & Type​

Drive capacity and format are fixed after creation. To increase capacity, create a new drive and migrate data.