Installing Ceph Manually

Get Ceph, install it on each Ceph Node, and deploy a cluster by hand, without cephadm. The manual steps serve mainly as an example for people who develop deployment scripts with Chef, Juju, Puppet, and similar tools. For the recommended method, see Using Cephadm to Deploy a New Ceph Cluster.

Get the Software

Getting Ceph Packages: add the Ceph repository for APT or DNF, the easiest and most common way to get Ceph, or download the pre-compiled packages from it.
Downloading a Ceph Release Tarball: the source code of a release, to build Ceph yourself.
Cloning the Ceph Source Code Repository: the source code of a branch, from GitHub or with Git.
Build Ceph: compile Ceph from source, or build its packages.
Ceph Download Mirrors: mirrors that copy the packages and tarballs of download.ceph.com.
Ceph Container Images: the container image that holds every Ceph daemon, and what each tag points to.

Install the Software

Installing Ceph Packages: install the packages on each node with APT or DNF, or install a build.
Install Virtualization for Block Device: QEMU and libvirt, for virtual machines and cloud platforms that use Ceph Block Devices.

Deploy a Cluster by Hand

Deploying a Ceph Cluster Manually: create the first Monitor, then add a Manager, OSDs, a Metadata Server, and a RADOS Gateway.
Manual Deployment on FreeBSD: the Monitor, OSD, and Metadata Server steps on FreeBSD, where cephadm is not available.

Upgrade

Read the release notes of the new version before you upgrade: they give the required upgrade sequence and any release-specific steps.

Ceph Releases (index): the release notes of each version, with its new features, bug fixes, and performance and security improvements.
Ceph Releases (general): the release cycle, and the releases from which an online, rolling upgrade is supported and tested.
Upgrading Ceph: upgrade a cluster that cephadm manages.

Next Steps

Cluster Operations: check the cluster’s health, monitor it, manage pools and data placement, and add or replace hardware.

Additional Resources

Installing Ceph: every installation method, including cephadm and Rook.
Converting an Existing Cluster to Cephadm: check whether an existing cluster can be converted to cephadm management, and convert it.
OS Recommendations: the distributions and kernels that each Ceph release is built and tested on.

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