Update Longhorn docs for two-worker topology

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2026-09-03 03:28:13 +01:00
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@@ -18,11 +18,21 @@ metal — your three Talos nodes — nothing provides that on its own, the
same gap MetalLB fills for IP addresses rather than storage.
**Longhorn** is that provider: it turns a plain disk on each node into one
pool of storage, and — because your cluster has three nodes — it
replicates each volume across more than one of them. Lose a node, and the
data backing any volume that had a replica elsewhere is still there. This
is also why Longhorn is genuinely a **three-node** story: with one node,
"replicated storage" has nothing to replicate *to*.
pool of storage, and replicates each volume across more than one node. Lose
a node, and the data backing any volume that had a replica elsewhere is
still there. This is why Longhorn needs more than one storage-providing
node at all: with only one, "replicated storage" has nothing to replicate
*to*.
This cluster deliberately keeps storage off the three Raspberry Pi control
planes — they have no data disk and are not meant to run application
workloads (see [`docs/02-talos-bootstrap.md`](02-talos-bootstrap.md)).
Longhorn instead runs only on the two dedicated Proxmox workers, each with
its own local NVMe-backed disk on a separate physical host (Gimli and
Titus). `defaultReplicaCount: 2` in
[`apps/longhorn/values.yaml`](../apps/longhorn/values.yaml) matches that:
with exactly two storage nodes, two replicas is the most redundancy
possible — losing either worker still leaves one complete copy.
## What's already running
@@ -33,23 +43,35 @@ umbrella-chart pattern as MetalLB, just without any extra templates of its
own this time.
The interesting configuration already happened at the Talos layer, back in
[`talos/patch-longhorn.yaml`](../talos/patch-longhorn.yaml): each node
found, formatted, and mounted its own ≥900GB disk at
`/var/mnt/longhorn`. [`apps/longhorn/values.yaml`](../apps/longhorn/values.yaml)
points Longhorn's `defaultDataPath` at that exact path — this is the thing
that makes Longhorn use *that* disk instead of carving space out of each
node's root filesystem (small, and on Talos, not meant for this kind of
data anyway).
[`talos/patch-longhorn.yaml`](../talos/patch-longhorn.yaml): each worker
found, formatted, and mounted its own ≥300GiB disk at `/var/mnt/longhorn`.
[`apps/longhorn/values.yaml`](../apps/longhorn/values.yaml) points Longhorn's
`defaultDataPath` at that exact path — this is the thing that makes Longhorn
use *that* disk instead of carving space out of each node's root filesystem
(small, and on Talos, not meant for this kind of data anyway).
[`talos/patch-worker.yaml`](../talos/patch-worker.yaml) also labels each
worker `node.longhorn.io/create-default-disk=true`, which is what actually
limits default-disk creation to these two nodes instead of every node in
the cluster — without it, Longhorn would try (and fail) to create a
default disk on the Raspberry Pi control planes too.
## Verify it's actually working
```sh
kubectl -n longhorn-system get pods
kubectl -n longhorn-system get pods -o wide
```
Expect a `longhorn-manager` and `longhorn-csi-plugin` Pod on each of your
three nodes, plus one `instance-manager` per node once a volume exists,
all `Running`.
Expect a `longhorn-manager` and `longhorn-csi-plugin` Pod on each of the
two workers (not the control planes), plus one `instance-manager` per
worker once a volume exists, all `Running`. Confirm Longhorn agrees which
nodes are eligible storage nodes:
```sh
kubectl -n longhorn-system get nodes.longhorn.io -o wide
```
Only the two workers should show `READY=true`, `ALLOWSCHEDULING=true`,
`SCHEDULABLE=true`.
```sh
kubectl get storageclass
@@ -86,13 +108,15 @@ once the pre-installed pieces are confirmed working, not a requirement to
move on.
> **Ask Claude:** "what would happen to that PVC's data if I lost one of
> my three nodes right now?" — worth being able to answer before you trust
> this with anything real.
> my two storage workers right now?" — worth being able to answer before you
> trust this with anything real.
## Checklist
- [ ] `kubectl -n longhorn-system get pods` shows manager/CSI Pods
`Running` on all three nodes
- [ ] `kubectl -n longhorn-system get pods -o wide` shows manager/CSI Pods
`Running` on both workers, and none on the control planes
- [ ] `kubectl -n longhorn-system get nodes.longhorn.io` shows exactly the
two workers as schedulable storage nodes
- [ ] `kubectl get storageclass` shows a default `longhorn` StorageClass
- [ ] (Optional) Gave the demo app a real PVC and confirmed it's `Bound`
with a healthy, replicated Longhorn volume behind it