Jenkins container persistence on Kubernetes cluster - PersistentVolumeClaim (VMware/Vsphere) - jenkins

Question

Trying to persist my jenkins jobs on to vsphere storage when I delete the deployments/services.
I've tried using the standard approach: used StorageClass, then made a PersistentVolumeClaim which is referenced in the .ayml file that will create the deployments.
storage-class.yml:
apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: StorageClass
metadata:
name: mystorage
provisioner: kubernetes.io/vsphere-volume
parameters:
diskformat: zeroedthick
persistent-volume-claim.yml:
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
name: pvc0003
spec:
storageClassName: mystorage
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
resources:
requests:
storage: 15Gi
jenkins.yml:
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: jenkins-auto-ci
labels:
app: jenkins-auto-ci
spec:
type: NodePort
ports:
- port: 80
targetPort: 8080
selector:
app: jenkins-auto-ci
---
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: jenkins-auto-ci
spec:
replicas: 1
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: jenkins-auto-ci
spec:
containers:
- name: jenkins-auto-ci
image: jenkins
resources:
requests:
cpu: 100m
memory: 100Mi
env:
- name: GET_HOSTS_FROM
value: dns
ports:
- name: http-port
containerPort: 80
- name: jnlp-port
containerPort: 50000
volumeMounts:
- name: jenkins-home
mountPath: "/var"
volumes:
- name: jenkins-home
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: pvc0003
I expect the jenkins jobs to persist when I delete and recreate the deployments.

Answer 1

You should create VMDK which is Virtual Machine Disk.
You can do that using govc which is vSphere CLI.
govc datastore.disk.create -ds datastore1 -size 2G volumes/myDisk.vmdk
Or using ESXi CLI by ssh into the host as root and executing:
vmkfstools -c 2G /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/volumes/myDisk.vmdk
Once this is done you should create your PV let's call it vsphere_pv.yaml which might look like the following:
apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolume
metadata:
name: pv0001
spec:
capacity:
storage: 2Gi
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Retain
vsphereVolume:
volumePath: "[datastore1] volumes/myDisk"
fsType: ext4
The datastore1 in this example was created in root folder of vCenter, if you have it in a different location you need to change the volumePath. If it's located in DatastoreCluster then set volumePath to"[DatastoreCluster/datastore1] volumes/myDisk".
Apply the yaml to the Kubernetes by kubectl apply -f vsphere_pv.yaml
You can check if it was created by describing it kubectl describe pv pv0001
Now you need PVC let's call it vsphere_pvc.yaml to consume PV.
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
name: pvc0001
spec:
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
resources:
requests:
storage: 2Gi
Apply the yaml to the Kubernetes by kubectl apply -f vsphere_pvc.yaml
You can check if it was created by describing it kubectl describe pvc pv0001
Once this is done your yaml might be looking like the following:
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: jenkins-auto-ci
spec:
replicas: 1
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: jenkins-auto-ci
spec:
containers:
- name: jenkins-auto-ci
image: jenkins
resources:
requests:
cpu: 100m
memory: 100Mi
env:
- name: GET_HOSTS_FROM
value: dns
ports:
- name: http-port
containerPort: 80
- name: jnlp-port
containerPort: 50000
volumeMounts:
- name: jenkins-home
mountPath: "/var"
volumes:
- name: jenkins-home
persistentVolumeClaim:
claimName: pvc0001
All this is nicely explained on Vmware GitHub vsphere-storage-for-kubernetes.