Volumes are expanded in two stages. First, Longhorn resizes the block device, then it expands the filesystem.

Since v1.4.0, Longhorn supports online expansion. Most of the time Longhorn can directly expand an attached volumes without limitations, no matter if the volume is being R/W or rebuilding.

If the volume was not expanded though the CSI interface (e.g. for Kubernetes older than v1.16), the capacity of the corresponding PVC and PV won’t change.

Prerequisite

• For offline expansion, the Longhorn version must be v0.8.0 or higher.
• For online expansion, the Longhorn version must be v1.4.0 or higher.

Expand a Longhorn volume

There are two ways to expand a Longhorn volume: with a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) and with the Longhorn UI.

Via PVC

This method is applied only if:

• The PVC is dynamically provisioned by the Kubernetes with Longhorn StorageClass.
• The field allowVolumeExpansion should be true in the related StorageClass.

This method is recommended if it’s applicable, because the PVC and PV will be updated automatically and everything is kept consistent after expansion.

Usage: Find the corresponding PVC for Longhorn volume, then modify the requested spec.resources.requests.storage of the PVC:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  annotations:
    kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration: |
      {"apiVersion":"v1","kind":"PersistentVolumeClaim","metadata":{"annotations":{},"name":"longhorn-simple-pvc","namespace":"default"},"spec":{"accessModes":["ReadWriteOnce"],"resources":{"requests":{"storage":"1Gi"}},"storageClassName":"longhorn"}}
    pv.kubernetes.io/bind-completed: "yes"
    pv.kubernetes.io/bound-by-controller: "yes"
    volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-provisioner: driver.longhorn.io
  creationTimestamp: "2019-12-21T01:36:16Z"
  finalizers:
  - kubernetes.io/pvc-protection
  name: longhorn-simple-pvc
  namespace: default
  resourceVersion: "162431"
  selfLink: /api/v1/namespaces/default/persistentvolumeclaims/longhorn-simple-pvc
  uid: 0467ae73-22a5-4eba-803e-464cc0b9d975
spec:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Gi
  storageClassName: longhorn
  volumeMode: Filesystem
  volumeName: pvc-0467ae73-22a5-4eba-803e-464cc0b9d975
status:
  accessModes:
  - ReadWriteOnce
  capacity:
    storage: 1Gi
  phase: Bound

Via Longhorn UI

Usage: On the volume page of Longhorn UI, click Expand for the volume.

Filesystem expansion

Longhorn will try to expand the file system only if:

• The expanded size should be greater than the current size.
• There is a Linux filesystem in the Longhorn volume.
• The filesystem used in the Longhorn volume is one of the following:
  • ext4
  • xfs
• The expanded size must be less than the maximum file size allowed by the file system (for example, 16TiB for ext4).
• The Longhorn volume is using the block device frontend.

Corner cases

Handling Volume Revert

If a volume is reverted to a snapshot with smaller size, the frontend of the volume is still holding the expanded size. But the filesystem size will be the same as that of the reverted snapshot. In this case, you will need to handle the filesystem manually:

1. Attach the volume to a random node.

2. Log in to the corresponding node, and expand the filesystem.

   If the filesystem is ext4, the volume might need to be mounted and umounted once before resizing the filesystem manually. Otherwise, executing resize2fs might result in an error:

   resize2fs: Superblock checksum does not match superblock while trying to open ......
   Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
   

   Follow the steps below to resize the filesystem:

   mount /dev/longhorn/<volume name> <arbitrary mount directory>
   umount /dev/longhorn/<volume name>
   mount /dev/longhorn/<volume name> <arbitrary mount directory>
   resize2fs /dev/longhorn/<volume name>
   umount /dev/longhorn/<volume name>
   

3. If the filesystem is xfs, you can directly mount, then expand the filesystem.

   mount /dev/longhorn/<volume name> <arbitrary mount directory>
   xfs_growfs <the mount directory>
   umount /dev/longhorn/<volume name>
   

Encrypted volume

Longhorn support for online expansion depends on Kubernetes.

• Kubernetes natively supports authenticated CSI storage resizing starting in v1.29.

• In Kubernetes v1.25 to v1.28, the feature gate CSINodeExpandSecret is required. You can enable online expansion for encrypted volumes by specifying the following encryption parameters in the StorageClass:

• csi.storage.k8s.io/node-expand-secret-name

• csi.storage.k8s.io/node-expand-secret-namespace

If you cannot enable it but still prefer to do online expansion, you can:

1. Login the node host the encrypted volume is attached to.
2. Execute cryptsetup resize <volume name>. The passphrase this command requires is the field CRYPTO_KEY_VALUE of the corresponding secret.
3. Expand the filesystem.

RWX volume

Longhorn currently does not support fully automatic expansion of the filesystem (NFS) for RWX volumes. You can expand the filesystem manually using one of the following methods:

Online

1. Expand the block device of the RWX volume via PVC or UI.
2. Identify the Share Manager pod of the RWX volume (typically named share-manager-<volume name>), and then run the filesystem expansion command in it.

   kubectl -n longhorn-system exec -it <the share manager pod> -- resize2fs /dev/longhorn/<volume name>
   

Important: Online expansion is possible only for ext4 volumes. Attempts to manually expand xfs volumes with xfs_growfs may initially appear to be successful, but issues occur when the workload is scaled up and the volume is reattached. In particular, the pods become stuck in the ContainerCreating state, and the logs show an error message about attempts to mount the filesystem.

Offline

1. Detach the RWX volume by scaling down the workload to replicas=0. Ensure that the volume is fully detached.

2. After the scale command returns, run the following command and verify that the state is detached.

   kubectl -n longhorn-system get volume <volume-name>
   

3. Expand the block device using either the PVC or the Longhorn UI.

4. Scale up the workload.

The reattached volume will have the expanded size.