Kubernetes: how to do dynamic PersistentVolumeClaim with persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy: Reclaim

Workaround would be to create new StorageClass with reclaimPolicy: Retain and use that StorageClass every where.

kind: StorageClassapiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1metadata:  name: gp2-retain  annotations:provisioner: kubernetes.io/aws-ebsparameters:  type: gp2  fsType: ext4 reclaimPolicy: Retain

PS: The reclaimPolicy of the existing StorageClass can't edited, but you can delete the StorageClass and recreate it with reclaimPolicy: Retain

There is an issue on Kubernetes Github about Reclaim Policy of dynamically provisioned volumes.

A short answer is "no" - you cannot set the policy.

Here is the small quote from the dialogue in the ticket on how to avoid the PV deletion:

Speedline: Stumbled upon this and I'm going through a similar issue. I want to create an Elasticsearch cluster but make sure that if the cluster goes down for whatever reason, the data stored on the persistent disks get maintained across the restart. I currently have one a PersistentVolumeClaim for each of the deployment of elasticsearch that carries data.

jsafrane: @speedplane: it is maintained as long as you don't delete the PVC. Reclaim policy is executed only if kuberenetes sees a PV that was bound to a PVC and the PVC does not exist.

@jsafrane okay, got it. So just have to be careful with the PVCs, deleting one is like deleting all the data on the disk.

This is not the answer to the OP, but the answer to the personal itch that led me here is that I don't need reclaimPolicy: Retain at all. I need a StatefulSet instead. Read on if this is for you:

My itch was to have a PersistentVolume that got re-used over and over by the container in a persistent way; the way that is the default behavior when using docker and docker-compose volumes. So that a new PersistentVolume only gets created once:

# Create a new PersistentVolume the very first timekubectl apply  -f my.yaml # This leaves the "volume" - the PersistentVolume - alonekubectl delete -f my.yaml# Second and subsequent times re-use the same PersistentVolumekubectl apply  -f my.yaml 

And I thought the way to do that was to declare a PersistentVolumeClaim with reclaimPolicy: Retain and then reference that in my deployment. But even when i got reclaimPolicy: Retain working, a brand new PersistentVolume still got created on every kubectl apply. reclaimPolicy: Retain just ensured that the old ones didn't get deleted.

But no. The way to achieve this use-case is with a StatefulSet. It is way simpler, and then it behaves like I'm used to with docker and docker-compose.