Create Custom tags for FlashArray Direct Access

Portworx Enterprise enables users to tag volumes, clones, and snapshots stored on FlashArray Direct Access backend storage. Custom disk tags for a FADA can be:

• Added while creating Direct Access Volume
• Modified after Volume Provisioning

Adding custom disk tags while creating Direct Access Volume

You can specify custom tags as a pure_backend_tags: <key1>:<value1>;<namespace>:<key2>:<value2> pair using a parameter. The namespace is optional and is any user defined namespace. These are not Kubernetes namespace. If no namespace is provided while adding tags, Portworx uses the default namespace.

Here are the some conditions for creating a custom tag:

• The pure_backend_tags parameter is mandatory.
• You can also specify only the key without a value.
• You cannot specify a custom tag without a key.
• A value cannot use : in the value text.
• Tag with a namespace is assigned the mentioned namespace.
• Tag without namespace is assigned the default namespace.

Based on your volume, select one of the following to create a custom disk tag for that volume.

• New Volume
• Cloned Volume
• Snapshot

New Volume

While creating direct access volumes, specify the custom tags in the StorageClass device spec for a new volume as:

pure_backend_tags: <namespace1>:<key1>:<value1>;<key2>:<value2>

This will create the volume with custom tags with the given key:value pair. For namespace1, the custom tag will be <key1>:<value1>. Custom tag <key2>:<value2> will go for the default namespace since no namespace was provided while adding custom tag.

Cloned Volume

Tags for volume clones will use the tags defined in the Storage Class of the clone. If the pure_backend_tags parameter is missing, the clone will have no tags. If the pure_backend_tags parameter is explicitly set to an empty string, the clone will have no tags. Otherwise, it will use the overwritten tags from the cloned Storage Class which can be defined as:

pure_backend_tags: <key1>:<value1>;<namespace>:<key2>:<value2>

You can also use pxctl to add a custom tag to a cloned volume:

pxctl volume clone --label pure_backend_tags="key1:value1;ns2:key2:value2" --name cloneName volName

This will update the custom tags for the cloned volume with the given key:value pair.

Snapshot

Specify the custom tags in VolumeSnapshotClass spec as:

pure_backend_tags: <key1>:<value1>;<key2>:<value2>

This will update the custom tags for a snapshot with the given key:value pair.

Modifying custom disk tags after volume provision

Custom tags for FlashArray Direct Access can be added or deleted after volume provisioning using pxctl.

• Add a custom tag with the following command:

  pxctl volume update --add_pure_tags "ns1:key1:val1;ns2:key2;key3:val3;key4:" volName

  Any existing tag will be overwritten by the new ones with this command. The namespace is optional and is any user defined namespace. These are not Kubernetes namespace. If no namespace is provided while adding tags, Portworx uses the default namespace. In this example, custom tag for a FADA volume will be updated as mentioned below:

  • For ns1 namespace, tag will key1:val1
  • For ns2 namespace, tag will be key2
  • For default namespace, tag will be key3:val3 and key4g

• Specify the tags that you want to delete with the following command:

  pxctl volume update --del_pure_tags "ns1:key1;key2:" volName

  In this example, custom tag for a FADA volume will be deleted as mentioned below:

  • For ns1 namespace, tag key1 will be deleted.
  • For default namespace, tag key2 will be deleted.

  Deleting a key would mean the deletion of key:value pair.

View the added custom tags

Run the following command to view all the custom tags assigned to a FADA:

pxctl volume inspect volName