Portworx Stork

Portworx Stork is a storage scheduler for Kubernetes that helps achieve tighter integration of Portworx with Kubernetes. It allows users to co-locate pods with their data, provides seamless migration of pods in case of storage errors, and makes it easier to create and restore snapshots of Portworx volumes.

Stork consists of two components: the Stork scheduler and an extender. Both run in HA mode with three replicas by default.

When you install Portworx using the Portworx Enterprise Cluster Spec from Portworx Central, Stork is installed by default.

This topic describes how to verify Portworx Stork installation, upgrade Stork, and enable Stork telemetry.

Verify Stork Installation

Run the following command:

kubectl get pods -n portworx
...
stork-56f7c6d4cb-6b4tf                      1/1     Running    0              21h
stork-56f7c6d4cb-qs25p                      1/1     Running    0              21h
stork-56f7c6d4cb-v7q6b                      1/1     Running    0              21h
stork-scheduler-78c6dc7c6-bkglp             1/1     Running    0              21h
stork-scheduler-78c6dc7c6-lt8ql             1/1     Running    0              21h
stork-scheduler-78c6dc7c6-vwbmn             1/1     Running    0              21h
...

Upgrade Stork

Perform the following steps to upgrade Stork:

1. Edit the storage cluster specification (Kubernetes resource):

   kubectl edit stc <stc-name> -n <portworx-namespace>

2. Change the Stork image and version details in stork section:

   stork:
      args:
        webhook-controller: "true"
      enabled: true
      image: openstorage/stork:<stork_version>

3. Save and exit.

Configure Stork scheduler performance settings

The Stork scheduler is a kube-scheduler binary the Portworx Operator deploys and configures through the stork-config ConfigMap. The scheduler throttles Kubernetes API calls with a default QPS of 50 and Burst of 100. In clusters that create many pods simultaneously, these defaults can cause pods to remain in Pending state while the scheduler queues API calls.

Starting with Portworx Operator 26.4.0, you can configure scheduler performance settings directly in the StorageCluster spec. The operator persists these values across reconciles and upgrades, and restarts the stork-scheduler pods automatically when you change them.

To configure Stork scheduler performance settings:

1. Edit the StorageCluster spec:

   kubectl edit storagecluster <cluster-name> -n <portworx-namespace>

2. Add or update the scheduler fields under spec.stork.scheduler:

   spec:
     stork:
       scheduler:
         verboseLogLevel: 5       # Optional: sets --v=5 on stork-scheduler
         kubeSchedulerClientQPS: 1000
         kubeSchedulerClientBurst: 500
         kubeSchedulerExtenderWeight: 5
         kubeSchedulerNodeCacheEnabled: true   # Optional: requires Stork 26.4.2 or later

3. Save and exit. The operator updates the stork-config ConfigMap and restarts the stork-scheduler pods automatically.

note

If you previously modified the stork-config ConfigMap directly to work around this limitation, those changes are reverted on every operator upgrade. To make your values persistent, set them once in the StorageCluster spec using the fields above.

note

When kubeSchedulerNodeCacheEnabled is not set, the operator automatically enables it for Stork 26.4.2 or later and leaves it disabled for older Stork versions. Setting it to true explicitly against a Stork version older than 26.4.2 is ignored, with a warning logged by the operator.

For the full list of available fields and their valid ranges, see Stork configuration.

Enable Stork telemetry

When you enable Portworx Enterprise telemetry, the system collects and uploads Stork logs to Pure1 telemetry. These logs help with troubleshooting and observability of Stork operations.

For Stork log telemetry, the following requirements must be met:

• Portworx Operator version is 26.2.0 or later
• Stork version is 26.3.0 or later
• Telemetry is enabled

There is no flag to disable only Stork log telemetry. If any requirement is not met, Stork telemetry is not enabled. You can configure the log-file-buffer-size-mib, log-file-max-backups, and log-file-max-age parameters in the Stork section of the StorageCluster CR. For more information, see Stork configuration.

Limitations

• Stork-scheduler pod logs are not collected to /var/cores/portworx-bundle/stork/. For collecting stork-scheduler logs, you need to use the PortworxDiag CRD. For more information, see On-demand diagnostics using PortworxDiag custom resource.

For more information about Portworx telemetry, see Portworx Telemetry. For available Stork configuration options, see Stork configuration.