Manage Block Storage Volumes with the Linode API

Updated Monday, August 19, 2019 by Linode Written by Jared Kobos

The Linode API allows you to create, delete, attach, detach, clone, and resize Block Storage Volumes.

Before You Begin

You will need a Personal Access Token to access the /volumes endpoint. Create an Access Token through the Beta Linode Manager. See our Getting Started with the Linode API for more information.

Store the token as a temporary shell variable to simplify repeated requests. Replace <Access Token> in this example with your token:

token=<Access Token>

Create a Block Storage Volume

Create a new Block Storage Volume by making a POST request to the /volumes endpoint. You can also automatically attach the new Volume to an existing Linode by passing the Linode’s ID when creating the Volume.

1. List the Linodes on your account:

   curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $token" \
   https://api.linode.com/v4/linode/instances
   

   Choose a Linode from the returned list and copy its id and region values.

2. Create a Volume in the same region as the target Linode. Use the ID of the target Linode and adjust the size, region, and label to the desired values:

   curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
   -H "Authorization: Bearer $token" \
   -X POST -d '{
     "label": "my-volume",
     "region": "us-east",
     "size": 100,
     "linode_id": 1234567
   }' \
   https://api.linode.com/v4/volumes
   

   Note

   The Volume and Linode must be in the same region.

3. Examine the response JSON object and copy the values in the id and filesystem_path fields:

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

   { "linode_id":1234567, "label":"my-volume", "size":100, "updated":"2018-05-07T14:59:48", "created":"2018-05-07T14:59:48", "id":6830, "status":"creating", "region":"us-east", "filesystem_path":"/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-0Linode_Volume_my-volume" }

4. Query the Volume using the /volumes/$volume_id endpoint to to make sure it was successfully created:

   curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $token" \
   https://api.linode.com/v4/volumes/$volume_id
   

   If the status field in the response is active, your Volume is ready to use.

Mount the Volume

The API can’t directly mount the new Volume after it is attached. SSH into the Linode and mount it manually:

1. Create a filesystem on the Volume:

   mkfs.ext4 $volume_path
   

2. Create a mountpoint:

   mkdir /mnt/my-volume
   

3. Mount the Volume:

   mount $volume_path /mnt/my-volume
   

4. To automatically mount the Volume every time your Linode boots, add the following line to your /etc/fstab file:

   /etc/fstab

   1	$volume_path /mnt/my-volume defaults 0 2

Attach and Detach the Volume

If you did not specify a Linode when creating the Volume, or would like to attach it to a different Linode, use the /attach and /detach endpoints:

1. Detach the Volume. Replace $volume_id with the Volume ID from the previous section:

   curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $token" \
   -X POST \
   https://api.linode.com/v4/volumes/$volume_id/detach
   

2. Attach the Volume to the new target Linode:

   curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $token" \
   -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
   -X POST -d \
   '{ "linode_id": $linode-id }' \
   https://api.linode.com/v4/volumes/$volume_id/attach
   

   Note

   If a Linode is not running and has more than one configuration profile, include a config_id parameter in the POST request to specify which profile to use. If you do not specify a profile, the first profile will be used by default.

Clone a Volume

To copy all of the data in a Block Storage Volume to a new Volume:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $token" \
-X POST -d '{
  "label": "new-volume"
}' \
https://api.linode.com/v4/volumes/$volume_id/clone

Delete a Volume

Remove a Volume from your account with a DELETE request. If the Volume is attached to a Linode, you will have to detach it before it can be deleted:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $token" \
-X DELETE \
https://api.linode.com/v4/volumes/$volume_id

Resize a Volume

If you need additional space, you can increase the size of a Volume through the API. It is not possible to reduce the size of a Volume.

Pass the desired size (in gigabytes) using the size parameter:

curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $token" \
-X POST -d '{
    "size": 200
}' \
https://api.linode.com/v4/volumes/$volume_id/resize

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

• API Documentation

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This guide is published under a CC BY-ND 4.0 license.