Changing the Reclaim Policy of a PersistentVolume in Kubernetes

--- title: Change the Reclaim Policy of a PersistentVolume content_type: task weight: 100 ---  This page shows how to change the reclaim policy of a Kubernetes PersistentVolume. ## {{% heading "prerequisites" %}} {{< include "task-tutorial-prereqs.md" >}} {{< version-check >}}  ## Why change reclaim policy of a PersistentVolume PersistentVolumes can have various reclaim policies, including "Retain", "Recycle", and "Delete". For dynamically provisioned PersistentVolumes, the default reclaim policy is "Delete". This means that a dynamically provisioned volume is automatically deleted when a user deletes the corresponding PersistentVolumeClaim. This automatic behavior might be inappropriate if the volume contains precious data. In that case, it is more appropriate to use the "Retain" policy. With the "Retain" policy, if a user deletes a PersistentVolumeClaim, the corresponding PersistentVolume will not be deleted. Instead, it is moved to the Released phase, where all of its data can be manually recovered. ## Changing the reclaim policy of a PersistentVolume 1. List the PersistentVolumes in your cluster: ```shell kubectl get pv ``` The output is similar to this: ```none NAME CAPACITY ACCESSMODES RECLAIMPOLICY STATUS CLAIM STORAGECLASS REASON AGE pvc-b6efd8da-b7b5-11e6-9d58-0ed433a7dd94 4Gi RWO Delete Bound default/claim1 manual 10s pvc-b95650f8-b7b5-11e6-9d58-0ed433a7dd94 4Gi RWO Delete Bound default/claim2 manual 6s pvc-bb3ca71d-b7b5-11e6-9d58-0ed433a7dd94 4Gi RWO Delete Bound default/claim3 manual 3s ``` This list also includes the name of the claims that are bound to each volume for easier identification of dynamically provisioned volumes. 1. Choose one of your PersistentVolumes and change its reclaim policy: ```shell kubectl patch pv <your-pv-name> -p '{"spec":{"persistentVolumeReclaimPolicy":"Retain"}}'

This document explains how to modify the reclaim policy of a PersistentVolume (PV) in Kubernetes. The default reclaim policy for dynamically provisioned PVs is "Delete", which automatically deletes the volume when the corresponding PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) is deleted. For PVs containing important data, the "Retain" policy is recommended, which prevents automatic deletion and moves the PV to the Released phase for manual data recovery. The guide provides steps to list PVs and use `kubectl patch` to change the reclaim policy to "Retain".