Basic Ceph Client Setup

Client machines need some basic configuration in order to interact with a cluster. This document describes how to configure a client machine for cluster interaction.

Note

Most client machines only need the ceph-common package and its dependencies installed. That will supply the basic ceph and rados commands, as well as other commands like mount.ceph and rbd.

Config File Setup

Client machines can generally get away with a smaller config file than a full-fledged cluster member. To generate a minimal config file, log into a host that is already configured as a client or running a cluster daemon, and then run

ceph config generate-minimal-conf

This will generate a minimal config file that will tell the client how to reach the Ceph Monitors. The contents of this file should typically be installed in /etc/ceph/ceph.conf.

Keyring Setup

Most Ceph clusters are run with authentication enabled, and the client will need keys in order to communicate with cluster machines. To generate a keyring file with credentials for client.fs, log into an extant cluster member and run

ceph auth get-or-create client.fs

The resulting output should be put into a keyring file, typically /etc/ceph/ceph.keyring.