Ceph

There are several small clarifications that can be made to the Ceph Preflight Checklist to help new users try out Ceph with less confusion. Here are my recommendations:

Under Ceph Deploy Setup

Current text reads:

Note: Some distributions (e.g., RHEL) require you to comment out Defaults requiretty in the /etc/sudoers file for ceph-deploy to work properly. If editing, /etc/sudoers, ensure that you use sudo visudo rather than a text editor.

It isn't the distribution that "requires" that the Defaults requiretty be commented out. That requirement is imposed by Ceph. Suggested rewrite:

Note: In some distributions (e.g., RHEL, CentOS 6, etc.), it will be necessary to comment out Defualts requiretty in the /etc/sudoers file, otherwise ceph-deploy will not work properly.
Use visudo to edit /etc/sudoers, rather than a text editor, to ensure that the file is locked while it is being updated. See visudo(8).

Under Ceph Node Setup

Current text reads:

Important: Do not call ceph-deploy with sudo or run it as root if you are logged in as a different user, because it will not issue sudo commands needed on the remote host.

It is difficult to parse that explanation. I suggest the following (if it is even remotely correct):

Important: Do not call ceph-deploy using sudo, and do not run ceph-deploy as root. Log in as a normal user to run ceph-deploy.

Also important:

• In order for ceph-deploy new node1 to work properly, node1 must be running sshd. The instructions for installing and starting sshd on the target nodes are not given until step 3 in this section (well after ceph-deploy new node1 is executed).

• The instructions assume that the target nodes all have a user account matching the user account in use on the admin node. This isn't always the case. For example, a "server" installation of CentOS6 does not require the creation of a primary user account during installation. The use of the --username option to ceph-deploy should be explained. It should also be noted that the root account on the remote nodes may be used (ceph-deploy --username root new node1).

• It is not clear from the documentation whether or not the 'ceph' user should be created on node1 (mon.node1), which is running the monitor. If the user were instructed to create a 'ceph' user on all three nodes prior to running ceph-deploy --username ceph new node1, that account could be used to configure the monitor node.