LIO CSP — Container Storage Provider for HPE CSI Driver

A lightweight HPE CSI Driver Container Storage Provider (CSP) backed by Linux LIO target with LVM thin provisioning. Turns any Linux machine with QLogic FC HBAs into a Kubernetes-managed block storage array.

Features

• FC target export via tcm_qla2xxx and rtslib-fb
• LVM thin provisioning — instant snapshots, space-efficient
• HPE CSI Driver compatible — implements the full CSP REST API
• Volume lifecycle — create, expand, delete, publish/unpublish, snapshot
• Automatic LUN mapping — discovers online FC target ports, creates ACLs per initiator WWPN
• Persistent config — targetcli saveconfig after every state change

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  HPE CSI Driver (K8s)               │
│  controller + node plugin           │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────┘
               │ REST API (:8080)
┌──────────────▼──────────────────────┐
│  LIO CSP (this project)             │
│  Falcon + gunicorn                  │
│  ┌─────────┐  ┌──────────────────┐  │
│  │ handlers │  │ backend          │  │
│  │ (REST)   │→ │ (LVM + rtslib)  │  │
│  └─────────┘  └──────────────────┘  │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────┘
               │
    ┌──────────┴──────────┐
    │ LIO kernel target   │
    │ tcm_qla2xxx (FC)    │
    │ LVM thin pool       │
    └─────────────────────┘

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Linux with QLogic ISP2432+ FC HBAs
• qla2xxx in dual or target mode
• targetcli-fb, python3-rtslib-fb
• LVM volume group with thin pool

Install

# System packages
zypper in -y targetcli-fb python3-rtslib-fb

# LVM thin pool (example: 2x NVMe)
pvcreate /dev/nvme0n1 /dev/nvme1n1
vgcreate lio-vg /dev/nvme0n1 /dev/nvme1n1
lvcreate -T lio-vg/tp0 -l 95%VG

# Application
mkdir -p /opt/lio-csp /var/lib/lio-csp
python3 -m venv --system-site-packages /opt/lio-csp/venv
/opt/lio-csp/venv/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
cp -r liocsp/ /opt/lio-csp/

# Systemd
cp lio-csp.service /etc/systemd/system/
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable --now lio-csp

Kubernetes (HPE CSI Driver)

See deploy/ for example manifests:

• lio-csp.yaml — in-cluster deployment (privileged pod on storage node)
• lio-csp-external.yaml — external service pointing to bare-metal host
• test-pvc.yaml — test PVC and pod

API Endpoints

Method	Path	Description
POST	/containers/v1/tokens	Authenticate
DELETE	/containers/v1/tokens/{id}	Logout
POST	/containers/v1/hosts	Register initiator
DELETE	/containers/v1/hosts/{id}	Remove initiator
POST	/containers/v1/volumes	Create volume
GET	/containers/v1/volumes	List volumes
GET	/containers/v1/volumes/{id}	Get volume
PUT	/containers/v1/volumes/{id}	Update volume
DELETE	/containers/v1/volumes/{id}	Delete volume
PUT	/containers/v1/volumes/{id}/actions/publish	Export to initiator
PUT	/containers/v1/volumes/{id}/actions/unpublish	Remove export
POST	/containers/v1/snapshots	Create snapshot
GET	/containers/v1/snapshots	List snapshots
DELETE	/containers/v1/snapshots/{id}	Delete snapshot

Configuration

Environment Variable	Default	Description
LIO_VG_NAME	lio-vg	LVM volume group
LIO_TP_NAME	tp0	LVM thin pool
LIO_STATE_FILE	/var/lib/lio-csp/state.json	Metadata state file
LOG_DEBUG	(unset)	Enable debug logging

License

Apache-2.0