Mount a Linux Volume on VPS Cloud

This guide explains how to format then mount the volume dedicated to storing your data on VPS Cloud Linux/Unix.

Disk and partition names

The VPS Cloud come with two volumes:

• 1 volume for the operating system of your choice
• 1 volume for storing your data

The volume for data storage must be formatted and then mounted by the client.

In Linux systems, disks and partitions are referenced by names, which vary depending on the Linux distribution, such as:

• /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, …
• /dev/vda, /dev/vdb, …
• /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, …

These names are not static and can change depending on various factors, such as the driver used (e.g. virtio-scsi or virtio-blk) or updates to the kernel and udev.

Therefore, it is recommended to use the UUID (Universal Unique Identifier - read more below) of a partition rather than its name when referencing it in the filesystem configuration file (/etc/fstab).
 

Formatting the storage volume

If you choose XFS, for example, it is necessary to install the appropriate tools (if they are not already present):

sudo apt install xfsprogs

Then format the volume with the following SSH commands:

sudo mkfs.xfs -f /dev/[device]

And if you choose EXT4:

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/[device]

If necessary, it is possible to format the volume with another file system supported by your distribution.

Mounting the storage volume

Warning: if you mount your data volume in /home, you will no longer be able to connect to your server via your private key on the next reboot (because SSH looks for the keys in the .ssh folder in the home directory of the user and if the data volume is mounted on this folder, the keys are lost). Therefore, it is necessary to copy the data to be preserved in advance. Help for SSH connection

For example, as root:

mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/[device] /mnt/home
rsync -rlptgoDHAX /home/ /mnt/home/
umount /mnt/home
mount /dev/[device] /home
rmdir /mnt/home

Here's what happens in order:

• we create a temporary folder
• we mount the volume on the temporary folder
• copy the contents of the original folder /home to the root of the volume while preserving permissions, owner, group, etc. (note that you may need to install the rsync package depending on the chosen Linux distribution)
• we unmount the volume from the temporary folder
• mount the volume on the /home folder
• we delete the temporary folder

This way, you should be able to mount the volume on /home while preserving the initial configuration that will be installed. However, it is recommended to always set a password for root to avoid losing control in case of an error. The password can be removed later.

Alternative solution: do not mount in /home...

This is a standard location to mount the data volume as it is generally in /home that users will work and especially store their data. A user without special rights will normally be limited to their /home/user directory. It is possible to specify another default directory for a user (but the configuration will no longer be "standard").

Another alternative solution: automatic mounting of the volume at startup...

A mount does not survive a reboot. If you want to make the change persistent, you can add your volume to the file /etc/fstab (Debian documentation on this topic) for example:

/dev/md0 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
UUID=181A-4B53 /boot/efi vfat errors=remount-ro,nofail 0 0
UUID=181B-AED3 /boot/efi2 vfat errors=remount-ro,nofail 0 0
UUID=[UUID1] /srv/node/sda xfs noatime,nodiratime,nofail,logbufs=8 0 0
UUID=[UUID2] /srv/node/sdb xfs noatime,nodiratime,nofail,logbufs=8 0 0

After formatting the disk, find the UUID and add it to the fstab.

Getting the UUID of a partition

To obtain the UUID of a partition after formatting it, use the blkid command. This command displays the UUID along with other information about all partitions detected by your system.

Add the UUID to fstab

Once you have obtained the UUID of the partition you want to mount automatically at startup, you can add it to your fstab file. To do this, open the fstab file with a command-line text editor (e.g., nano or vi) and add a new line for your partition using the example above as a template. Replace [device], [UUID1] and [UUID2] with the appropriate values for your configuration.