Performing the expansion

When you perform the expansion, the new grid nodes or the new site is added to your existing StorageGRID deployment. You must download an updated copy of the Recovery Package file while the expansion process is completing.

1. Select Maintenance > Expansion.
2. Click Configure Expansion.
   The Site Selection dialog appears.

   
   
   

3. Select the type of expansion you are starting:
   • If you are adding a new site, select New, and enter the name of the new site.
   • If you are adding grid nodes to an existing site, select Existing.
4. Click Save.
5. Approve the pending grid nodes:
   1. Review the Pending Nodes list, and confirm that it shows all of the grid nodes you deployed.
      Note: If a grid node is missing, confirm that it was deployed successfully.
   2. Select the radio button next to the pending grid node you want to approve.
   3. Click Approve.
      The Grid Node Configuration page appears, with the appropriate node name in the title.
   4. In General Settings, modify settings for the following properties, as necessary:
      • Site: The name of the site the grid node will be associated with.
      • Name: The host name that will be assigned to the node, and the name that will be displayed in the Grid Manager.
      • NTP Role: The Network Time Protocol (NTP) role of the grid node. The options are Automatic, Primary, and Client. Selecting Automatic assigns the Primary role to Admin Nodes, Storage Nodes with ADC services, API Gateway Nodes, and any grid nodes that have non-static IP addresses. All other grid nodes are assigned the Client role.
        Note: Assign the Primary NTP role to at least two nodes at each site. This provides redundant system access to external timing sources.
      • ADC Service: This field is only available if the Node Configuration dialog box was opened for Storage Nodes. For Storage Nodes, this option determines whether the selected node will run the Administrative Domain Controller service. Select Automatic to have this option applied automatically by the system as required, or select Yes or No to explicitly set this option for the grid node. For example, because you cannot add an ADC service to a node after it has been deployed, you might need to select Yes if this expansion will be followed by a decommissioning of Storage Nodes containing the ADC service at this site.
   5. In Grid Network, modify settings for the following properties, as necessary:
      • IPv4 Address (CIDR): The CIDR network address for the eth0 Grid Network interface. For example: 172.16.10.100/24
      • Gateway: The default gateway of the grid node. For example: 172.16.10.1
   6. If you want to configure the Admin Network for the grid node, add or update settings in the Admin Network section, as necessary.
      Enter the destination subnetworks of the routes out of this interface in the Subnets (CIDR) text box.
   7. If you want to configure the Client Network for the grid node, add or update settings in the Client Network section, as necessary.
   8. Click Save.
      The approved grid node entry moves to the Approved Nodes list.

      Note: If you need to modify the properties of an approved grid node, select its radio button and click Edit.
   9. Repeat these steps for each pending grid node you want to approve.
6. When you have approved the new grid nodes, enter the Provisioning Passphrase.
7. Click Expand.
   The page updates to display the status of the expansion procedure.
8. As soon as the Download Recovery Package link appears, download the Recovery Package file.
   You must download an updated copy of the Recovery Package file as soon as possible after making grid topology changes to the StorageGRID system. The Recovery Package file allows you to restore the system if a failure occurs.
   1. Click the download link.
   2. Enter the provisioning passphrase, and click Start Download.
   3. When the download completes, open the .zip file and confirm it includes a gpt-backup directory and a *_SAID.zip file. Then, extract the *_SAID.zip file, go to the /GID*_REV* directory, and confirm you can open the passwords.txt file.
   4. Copy the downloaded Recovery Package file (.zip) to two safe, secure, and separate locations.
      Attention: The Recovery Package file must be secured because it contains encryption keys and passwords that can be used to obtain data from the StorageGRID system.