Maas cli create raids - block_devices?

Docs
1

Hi, I’m trying to use the maas CLI to define storage layout of my machines and especially raid arrays

I can’t figure out what type of data is needed for the block_devices parameter

maas $profile raids create 6qc6gt name=test level=raid-0 block_devices=["sdh"
,"sdi"]
{"block_devices": ["Select a valid choice. [sdh,sdi] is not one of the available choices."]}

If I put IDs of the block devices, it is the same and also different string format give same error like : “sdh,sdi” ; ‘sdh,sdi’ ; "{[‘sdh’,‘sdi’]} and almost any possible variants

From the CLI doc
:param block_devices: Optional. Block devices to add
to the RAID.
:type block_devices: String

Thanks for your help (was not able to find an example on INTERNET even there : maas-docs/en/installconfig-storage.md at master · CanonicalLtd/maas-docs · GitHub
https://github.com/CanonicalLtd/maas-docs/blob/master/en/manage-cli-advanced.md

2

I managed to capture traffic while using the webUI because it is working via WebUI. Using tcpdump I can see in the websocket traffic the POST call to API with these datas :

{"method":"machine.create_raid","type":0,"params":{"level":"raid-0","name":"md042","system_id":"nchbrq","tags":[],"block_devices":[849,850]},"request_id":16}

But when I do it through CLI, I have the same problem

maas preDEV-maas-user raids create nchbrq name=test level=raid-0 block_devices=[849,850]
{"block_devices": ["Select a valid choice. [849,850] is not one of the available choices."]}

I also captured the API call of the CLI still a POST with multi-part DATA, we can see the base64 encoded value of all the parameters

POST /MAAS/api/2.0/nodes/nchbrq/raids/ HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.2.2:5240
content-type: multipart/form-data; boundary="===============5263540941563289710=="
mime-version: 1.0
content-length: 642
authorization: OAuth oauth_nonce="*******************", oauth_timestamp="***********", oauth_version="1.0", oauth_signature_method="PLAINTEXT", oauth_consumer_key="GByPaU5yHkpppvKn9J", oauth_token="**************", oauth_signature="*************************"
user-agent: Python-httplib2/0.20.2 (gzip)
accept-encoding: gzip, deflate

--===============5263540941563289710==
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="name"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

dGVzdA==

--===============5263540941563289710==
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="level"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

cmFpZC0w

--===============5263540941563289710==
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="block_devices"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Wzg0OSw4NTBd

--===============5263540941563289710==--

And the base64 decode is giving us the right format, I really don’t understand what is going on…
Is it a bug ?

echo "Wzg0OSw4NTBd" | base64 -d
[849,850]

Thanks a lot if you can help

3

Following my investigation, I now have the exact same problem for the creation of a LVM volume group which need IDs of disks

maas <profile> volume-groups create nchbrq name=vgtest block_devices=[849,850]
{"block_devices": ["Select a valid choice. [849,850] is not one of the available choices."]}

I was willing to look the source code of the CLI but I don’t understand how it works when looking here : maas/src/maascli at 3.4 · canonical/maas (github.com)

I’m not able to locate how commands like raids or volume-groups are handled, even while searching for these keywords in the whole repository I found almost nothing.

I’m really stuck, help is more than welcome

4

To be fully tested but it seems that this syntax should work, hope it could help other folks.
Documentation should be definitely updated to help people

maas <profile> raids create 6qc6gt name=test level=raid-0 block_devices=1022   block_devices=1023
5

the CLI documentation is not crystal clear :

$ maas <profile> raids create
...
 :param block_devices: Optional.  Block devices to add
to the RAID.
:type block_devices: String

 :param level: Required.  RAID level.
:type level: Int

You have to repeat block_devices=id for each block device, using the device ID.

first, get the device ID of the desired block device :

$ maas preDEV-maas-user  block-devices read  <machineID> | jq  '.[] | "\(.id) \(.name)"'
"1021 vda"
"1022 vdb"
"1023 vdc"
"1029 vgroot-lvroot"

then create your raid array :

$ maas preDEV-maas-user raids create -d e846ge name=md0 level=raid-0  block_devices=1022   block_devices=1023

Note that raid-0 is not exactly an Int