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Make user's home directory persistent using hostPath

Prerequisites

  • a Kubernetes cluster with abcdesktop installed

Define hostPath folder and update od.config

On your node, create a directory that will serve as the mount point for user home directories — for example, /mnt/abcdesktop_volumes/. Then edit your od.config file. First, set desktop.homedirectorytype to 'hostPath' and add a desktop.hostPathRoot entry whose value is the path to the mount point you created.

desktop.homedirectorytype: 'hostPath'

#
# desktop.hostPathRoot set the hostPath root directory
# desktop.hostPathRoot is read only if desktop.homedirectorytype: 'hostPath'
desktop.hostPathRoot: '/mnt/abcdesktop_volumes'

Kubernetes will automatically create a directory for each user if one does not already exist.

Finally, update the ConfigMap and restart pyos by running the following commands:

kubectl create -n abcdesktop configmap abcdesktop-config --from-file=od.config -o yaml --dry-run=client | kubectl replace -n abcdesktop -f -
kubectl rollout restart deploy pyos-od -n abcdesktop

Check if user's home directory is persistent

You can now connect to abcdesktop and log in as a user.

Once connected, run the following command to verify that the user's home directory is correctly configured:

kubectl describe pod <YOUR-POD-NAME> -n abcdesktop

You should see something like the following in the volumes section:

Volumes:
  home:
    Type:          HostPath (bare host directory volume)
    Path:          /mnt/abcdesktop_volumes/fry
    HostPathType:  DirectoryOrCreate

You can also verify on the host node that the directory has been created:

ls -la /mnt/abcdesktop_volumes/
total 20
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root  4096 Apr  7 16:44 .
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root  4096 Apr  7 11:39 ..
drwxr-x--- 15 2042 12042 4096 Apr  8 11:21 fry

The numeric UID of the directory owner should match your user's UID.

Now create a file in the user's home directory:

create file on user homedir

Verify that the file is present on the host node:

ls -la /mnt/abcdesktop_volumes/fry
drwxr-x--- 2 2042 12042 4096 Mar 17 15:09 Desktop
drwxr-x--- 2 2042 12042 4096 Mar 17 15:09 Documents
drwxr-x--- 2 2042 12042 4096 Mar 17 15:09 Downloads
drwxr-x--- 2 2042 12042 4096 Mar 17 15:09 Music
drwxr-x--- 2 2042 12042 4096 Mar 17 15:09 Pictures
drwxr-x--- 2 2042 12042 4096 Mar 17 15:09 Public
drwxr-x--- 2 2042 12042 4096 Mar 17 15:09 Templates
-rw-r----- 1 2042 12042    0 Mar 18 09:11 toto.txt
drwxr-x--- 2 2042 12042 4096 Mar 17 15:09 Videos

Then log off to destroy the pod and allow it to be recreated. Once reconnected on a new pod with the same user, verify that the file you previously created is still present.

check peristent user homedir

Home directory persistence using hostPath is now configured.